62. Connections

A welpakian servant stepped forward with a tray. Kneeling before the recent arrival, she set the tray to one side, Kowtowed, and then began mixing the tea for the honored cultivator.

The leaves were taken from the world of Retla, which was one stage above the cultivator’s home world of Atla. They were dense with the spirituality of that world, having been cultivated carefully in a grove that was centuries old in the densest region of spiritual energy on the planet.

The water was taken from a spring on the world of Ortlas. It retained the icy taste of winter and was dense with the essences of purity and change. It, too, roiled with spiritual energy and significance.

The teakettle that she boiled the water in was centuries old, and had been crafted by a master who had died rather than ascend. The flame itself was a candle taken from the wax of the regal wasps of Eltlas.

She was not worthy to taste the tea that she brewed. She was barely worthy to serve this recent ascendant. She was--

“What is your name?” the ascended one asked, his voice gentle and calm.

It took all of her training not to yelp in surprise at having been spoken to by the ascended. She was not worthy to answer, but perhaps this ascended did not know that. Now that she had been asked, however, it would be a grave violation of etiquette not to answer.

“This one is called Mai Mai,” she answered.

“Your tea is splendid. I forgot to thank you the last time you served me. Thank you, Mai Mai. I hope that you are treated well in the palace,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. She proceeded to continue making his tea, and once she had finished she set the cup by his side, then quietly retreated from the room.

The witnesses to the exchange reported it as protocol, and immediately she was set to begin receive additional training on the off chance that the ascended one meant to cultivate a relationship with her beyond simply having her serve him tea.

With a simple ‘thank you,’ her Mai Mai’s life was forever altered.

Di Phon was not ignorant of this, watching thoughtfully through the avatar of little birds as he studied the palace he had been given. He could have clarified his intentions, especially when the young woman was given embarrassingly detailed instructions on how to please a man in bed. Instead he remained silent.

He continued to take his tea when the sun was just above the peak of Nial So Fortha, an hour after the sun had reached its zenith, and two hours before twilight. And each time he thanked Mai Mai kindly by name.

The Descendants who ran the palace examined each exchange carefully. But more than that, they studied the ascended one.

They watched as, free from the world of his birth, his cultivation soared to unprecedented heights.

~~~~~

“He’s gone,” the landlord informed them. Hien Ro glanced at Yara, who glanced at him. They were at the apartment that they had rented while preparing for the tournament, but although Little Bug had transferred the lease to Adan Pocef, Yara’s father, once they had left, there was a new family living their now. A young couple with three children.

“Did he tell you where he was going?” Yara asked patiently.

“I didn’t ask and he didn’t say,” the landlord said. “He owes me two months rent though. I swear that I didn’t kick him out, not when he was put there by the Awakened Soul himself, but a debt is a debt and he owes two months rent.”

Yara sighed and settled her father’s debt with the coin that they’d been given by the Many Peaks Alliance for their agreement to cooperate with the defense of Mer’cah and Resh Fali. After their meeting with the patriarch and the chairwoman, the disciples had each gone their separate ways.

“Where do we look next?” Hien Ro asked Yara as they walked through the familiar streets of Mer’cah. They glanced at the coliseum in the distance, so recently built, such a recent part of their history. Yet it had been a lifetime ago when they had competed there.

“With every bookie and loan shark in the city,” she said, a tinge of anger in her voice. “If anyone knows where my father will be, it will be his creditors.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Hien Ro’s hand entangled with her, and she began to calm as they walked through the streets hand in hand. Their matching rings on their fingers. They needed to find Adan to make the announcement, but the man was simply nowhere to be found.

~~~~~

Taimei stood before the patriarch and flared her cultivation to its greatest heights. In return, he showed his own base. They competed, silently, for a long moment, before finally the patriarch realized that he was outclassed. His spirit filled with submission, and he bowed his head slightly to the girl who had been born out of wedlock to a chambermaid.

“I am proud of you, granddaughter,” he told her.

Taimei’s eyes rose. “Granddaughter?”

“I am sorry. You must understand, your father, he is married, and the situation with his wife’s family is tense. Acknowledging you formally while you were younger would have put the clan in a difficult position. Toran was sent away so that the relationship with your mother could not continue, and he has lived with his wife’s family ever since. I promised him before he left that I would see to it that his child was looked after. I apologize that there was only so much I could do without—”

Taimei enveloped her grandfather in an embrace, causing the old man to stiffen, then relax.

“I always hoped,” she said. “I knew that there must be more to the story, but mother never said a word, and neither did anyone else except to disparage her as a whore.”

“She was not that. The love between your mother and father was great, but he had already sworn vows to another, whom I regretfully forced upon him because of political reasons. In between his duty to his clan and his duty to his daughter, he was reluctantly forced to choose his clan, but that does not mean that he does not love you.”

Taimei wiped a happy tear from her eye. “Can I meet him? Officially?”

“You may. Now that you have reached the silver path I am officially announcing your lineage. Your father’s family will understand; his ability to produce such a powerful heir will increase the standing of your half-siblings in their clan as well.” Her grandfather chuckled. “It shall put the pressure upon him to actually do so. I fear that there is no great love between him and his wife, and they have only a single male heir who has yet to enkindle his dantian.”

“When is the announcement?” she asked. “And when can I meet my father?”

“I shall make the announcement tomorrow night, at a feast to celebrate your achievement,” the patriarch stated. “As for when you may meet my youngest son, I’m afraid that he has joined the Many Peaks Alliance and is in the north, so I do not have that answer.”

Taimei processed this information for a moment, then smiled. “Well then, if he can’t come to me, I suppose I’ll have to go to him.”

~~~~~

Lukal Lukal stepped into the clearing where the fire pit still smelled of charcoal and ash. He looked around at the small village that had sprung up around his former master’s camp and sighed.

He had known that this was a possibility, but he had still hoped that he would return in time for his master’s final days.

The camp was empty.

The clan of orphans and foundlings which his master had cared for had lost their anchor. He had hoped that some would remain, but the oldest footprints he found were weeks old.

He walked through the camp, sticking his head in some of the rickety shelters and looking for any signs of habitation, but found nothing. The children and elder disciples of his first master – a man who had known Little Bug in another life – had vanished.

It did not take him long to find the man’s grave itself. The grave marker a simple spear, but one that Lukal Lukal was intimately familiar with.

He built a fire near the grave and forced a smile upon his face.

“This disciple thanks his first master for sending him to his second master,” Lukal Lukal said, kowtowing to the grave. “He will now tell the story of how he reached the silver path.”

He began to recount the entire tale, starting from the endless walk through the jungle where the sun did not move even after hours and at night the stars remained frozen in place.

“I saw a shooting star moving in slow motion,” he said, shaking his head. “It was utterly beautiful.”

When he had reached the halfway mark of the story, a sudden shift in his camp came. He frowned, looking from the fire where he had imagined his master’s spirit was listening to him. From the grave, a hand pushed through the dirt.

His master’s corpse pulled its way out of the ground. It flared, it’s cultivation that of a late silver path cultivator.

Lukal Lukal closed his eye for a moment, then, as the ghoul was still climbing out of the grave, he took his master’s spear in his hands and prepared for combat.

It took him an hour to still the unnaturally moving body for the second time.

With tears streaming down his eyes, he honored his master’s remains by consigning them to a purifying flame. As he stood at the pyre, he continued to tell his tale from where he had left off.

It was a very good story, he thought, and he was proud that he had returned to his master to tell it.

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