48. Ruthlessness

Jumper flew slow circles around the goliath tree, singing out in the haunting and beautiful voice that, if she wasn’t already Jumper, I would have named her for. After several moments, her siblings called back, and the family was reunited.

The twelve hatchlings which had once been under my care swirled and did aerial acrobatics above me while I calmly ate a bite of jerky and waited for the Tunrida to notice. I knew that he would, and after ten minutes the massive thunderbird arrived from over the horizon, swiftly flying and landing on the lowest branch of the goliath tree. His massive and colorful plumage was displayed in full as he welcomed me into his court.

“You have returned, Little Bug,” the Tunrida said. “When these eleven young ones returned to me I considered our business complete. You do not need to continue to make reports on your progress in finding me a mate. Even if these young ones do not meet the qualifications to be my equal, they are at least clever enough to hold a conversation with. I am satisfied that I got the better end of the bargain.”

“I am glad that you are happy, oh majestic one,” I confessed, “However, I am in need of more real estate and I was rather hoping that you would abide me to rent from you once more. This time, I shall be closing off the mountain in question entirely, and while it should not affect the rest of the jungle as—”

“Yes. Take the mountain. Take twelve of them if you wish,” the Tunrida said. “I have never been so happy as when these children flew home to me. Not in this life, at least.”

I allowed myself a moment to feel surprise. I had been expecting a little more … bargaining?

“I shall not refuse your generous offer. Actually, since I am no longer constrained by budget, I would take a total of nine mountains in your territory, but I would ask time to survey them to select which ones are best for my—”

“Climb on my back and I shall help you,” the Tunrida declared. “And still I will feel in your debt.”

I considered for a moment.

Then I accepted, and I climbed onto the majestic Tunrida’s back and we flew off towards the horizon to scout the mountains where I would train my disciples.

~~~~~~~

“Let it go, Yara,” Hien Ro said as they worked together to bake bread in the main compound’s oven. “Yes I was angry too, but you know that he had his reasons. He explained them to us himself, and I can’t exactly say that they were wrong. And we are much stronger after going through that ordeal. I can feel the edges of the bronze path already. I just need a push to step onto it. I feel that if I tried, I could any time I wanted to, but I trust Little Bug, and he said to wait.”

“Yes, he explained what he did to us. After he did it. That is what I’m upset about. I thought we were friends, but he, he, I don’t have words to describe it,” Yara complained, smashing her dough rather than kneading it.

“That would have defeated half the purpose and you know it,” Hien Ro said. “And besides, you’re forgetting something important. As hard as we were struggling to keep up, he was struggling to keep us all together in our own little pockets. He’s only bronze rank and he’s creating dimensional spaces. Just like Dao Avatars, that’s something you’re not supposed to be able to do until Gold, and I doubt it was easy.”

“You didn’t notice, did you? It got easier for him,” Polkluk said, stepping into the kitchen. “Sorry, I admit I was eavesdropping but I came to check on dinner and heard you and—”

“It’s fine, Polkluk,” Yara said, smashing her dough again. “What do you mean?”

“The time between rest periods, the outside time I mean, it got longer. The first ‘day’ we rested was only a few hours after our journey began. Then we must have slept for six hours, and then we had another marathon, but again the journey itself only lasted a few hours to the outside world. At the end our journeys were entire days long, though they felt like months,” he explained.

Yara frowned, reflecting over the time she had spent with Little Bug. “Huh.”

“What are you getting at, Polkluk?” Hien Ro asked.

“It’s just, in the stories about old monsters bestowing great wisdom on their juniors, it’s never a one way street. The powerful cultivator always gets something from the less powerful one. We’re getting techniques and being raised to the silver path, but what does Little Bug get out of this arrangement?” he asked. “I don’t mean he’s selfish, I don’t mean—”

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“You’re right,” Hien Ro said. “He’s using us to develop his own powers. He as much as told us so. But why bring it up?”

“Because I was wondering how it is that we can repay him, and so I was hoping that you could tell me ways of giving him what he wants,” Polkluk said. “I don’t mind being indebted to him, but I hate to think that I took and took without trying to give anything back to him.”

“Why are you asking us?” Hien Ro asked.

“You’ve known him the longest.”

“Well, as our recent argument proves, perhaps we don’t know him as well as we thought we did,” Yara said, smashing her dough again in frustration.

~~~~~~

Thaseus swung his sword. It was large and heavy, made of stone and not metal and more useful for crushing than cutting. More of a hammer in the shape of a sword than a true sword, but he had stubbornly trained with it because it was the heaviest weapon that the training yard at home had allowed him to bring into a duel.

Heavy was good, because it helped him crush his opponents.

He swung the sword, feeling the inertia strain against his movements as he twisted and turned. He did not bow to the laws of physics, he was their master, and if he said that the hammer-sword was graceful then it would be graceful despite its mass and velocity.

If he’d been allowed to use this weapon during the tournament then--

He frowned, and he turned his mind away from analyzing that thought.

Because he wouldn’t have done any better, he would have done worse. The entire reason that his family had felt the need to cheat for him was that his opponents were afraid to face him. While bruises and even broken bones might heal more rapidly for cultivators, they still hurt, and when defeat was obvious it was much easier to withdraw from the tournament than continue.

He followed the chain of weakness in his mind.

His family had cheated. Because he was weak.

They had been forced to cheat because he was ruthless with his opponents, causing them to fear him.

They feared his strength.

But Lokul Lokul was almost as strong as he was. He was reluctant to admit it, but their duel during the tournament had been a minor decision in his favor in points, with a final score of eight to six. Fighting Lokul Lokul had been an exercise in frustration, and although he was technically the victor he hadn’t felt like it when he had left the ring.

He had failed to crush Lokul Lokul.

He had failed to frighten Lokul Lokul.

Lokul Lokul was the true victor of the tournament.

Because his opponents had not feared him the way that they feared Thaseus.

Lokul Lokul was not as ruthless. He had taken whatever points he could and played to win, but at the end of the duels he would pick his opponents up and slap them on the back and congratulate them for a fight well fought.

Was that why Lokul Lokul was stronger than Thaseus?

Was ruthlessness not a strength, as his family had taught him, but a weakness?

He slammed his weapon against a stone and the stone shattered into dust. He was breathing hard, and he was sweating, and unlike he normally felt when he exercised this hard he was angry and frustrated.

He had hit a wall during the trek here and he did not know how to move forward.

“Ho there! I thought I heard the sound of someone practicing. Would you like to cross weapons with Lokul Lokul?” Lokul Lokul asked, coming up from the side of the clearing.

Thaseus glared at him, but nodded. He had remained taciturn throughout their long/short journey here, but although he had maintained a distance with the other disciples, he could respect this other teenager.

“Would you fight me with weapons bare?” Lokul Lokul asked, extending a hand and forming a trident from the dust on the ground. It coalesced with the guidance of his Qi and became a solid thing in seconds.

“You’re not afraid that I will hurt you?” Thaseus said.

“What is pain?” Lokul Lokul inquired. “I fear nothing that I have conquered, and I have conquered pain long ago. Let me show you the techniques of my master and his spear, and I shall witness your techniques with the weapon you have there. I am very curious to see how I stack up when we are not confined by the rules of the tournament.”

Thaseus grinned, for that was a sentiment he shared.

The duel began, and the mountain echoed with the clashes of unrestrained violence.

In the aftermath of the duel, Thaseus left his shattered weapon behind him. It had not served him as well as he once believed that it did.

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