Three men and one woman walked single-file into the room, wearing a variety of clothing and expressions.
The lone female disciple was, as was only reasonable, the one that caught Lu’s eye first. She wore a dull red dress of thick leather that hugged the curves of her body, though he assumed the design was meant for practicality rather than eroticism. Nothing to grab. Her hair is short, too – a grapple-focused martial artist?
The men were somewhat drab in comparison. Two wore identical white robes to match their identical pale faces and neutral expressions. Twins. Or perhaps merely two brothers playing up their similarities. They’ve applied enough cosmetics that they could be hiding any conflicting features. Even the swords at their hips were the same, short and single-edged with simple hilts, though one wore his on his left and the other his right.
The third and final man – more of a boy, really – shuffled in at the back of the line. He shied away from meeting anyone’s eyes, almost seeming to hide behind the long hair obscuring the left half of his face. His robes look of fine make, but they’re rumpled and ill-kept. Lu immediately put his age – he looked fifteen at most – together with his demeanour to make a guess at his circumstances.
Most likely a solid talent – I was the lowest realm disciple allowed to participate in the sit, so he must have advanced very swiftly to still appear so young – whose confidence has been damaged by his loss of cultivation.
Very sad, very sad. I’ll be sure to treat you well, junior brother.
The five lined up across one side of the long table, their eyes either settling on the map spread out across the surface, on Lu or Giro’s faces, or down to the floor in one case.
Giro flared his sense. “Disciple Lu, let me introduce your new students. While they are not officially your disciples, please treat them as such.” He nodded to the twins. “Ban Do and Kai Hiien. Inner disciples.” Eh? Are they not even brothers? No, they look too similar; they must be half-brothers at the very least. Noble bastards, maybe?
Another nod, to the woman. “Jiendao. Inner disciple.” Then the cringing youth. “Hom How. Core disciple.”
Lu’s brows rose at his senior’s words. That high, huh? I can’t detect a speck of cultivation in him – the others have all reformed their dantians at least, but it seems Sir How’s spirit was properly crushed.
Lu bowed shallowly. “Lu, outer disciple. A pleasure to meet you.” As they bowed back, he took the opportunity to examine their spirits in greater detail.
Lady Jiendao is my equal at third realm, with the twins being neck-and-neck at the bottom of second and top of first. None of them seem to have advanced their consumption at all; I could swear I’ve felt sharpies with a deeper ki reserve, and they don’t have much of a ‘taste’ either.
It seems he truly was this quartet’s senior.
“You’ll have more than enough time to become familiar with each other once you’ve reached the breach. Speaking of…” Giro tapped a finger on the large map spread out on his desk. It showed the central region of the continent, with their mountain in the exact centre. Commissioned by the sect, I would assume. It was a fairly well-made thing, the terrain detailed and clear; even though there were no labels or markings for settlements, Lu could easily deduce the locations of nearby villages through context alone.
The core disciple’s finger ghosted over the only abstract symbol on the paper, a thick circle of ink drawn over the equally-thick forests to the north. “Are any of you familiar with this area?”
A flare of sense, and Giro gestured for the red-clad lady to answer.
Jiendao’s voice was higher than he would have assumed. “I’ve been to the northern forests on several extermination missions. The spirit wolves can be extremely dangerous if allowed to multiply – the badgers, likewise.”
Lu blinked and the twins raised their brows mirror-like at each other. Badgers? Well, I suppose they are carnivores, but…
If Giro found her comment interesting in any way, it didn’t show on his face. “Quite. I’ll be accompanying you for your protection – both from wildlife and anything that might breach through – but please memorise the way to and from the site, just in case.”
A minute passed as the students stared at the map. Then with a flick of his wrist, Giro folded the large sheet and tucked it into his robes.
“Any supplies you’ve forgotten?” Negative reactions from the students. And I’ve got everything I need in my purse. “Alright. Let’s move out.”
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Lu set the plank of wood in the shape of a sword down gently, almost reverently. It was a full metre in length, and as wide as his forearm and hand put together where it didn’t taper near the edges.
He felt giddy as he stepped on, his sense poking at the control arrays. Though it was less than a centimetre thick, it did not bend even slightly under his weight. Will it be like the speeder? Ah, I’m getting too excited, my students will see and..!
The thought flew away as he rose smoothly into the air. It was easy, more like moving a limb than anything; he simply willed himself to move, and the treasure did so. He was completely incapable of containing his smile as he banked in a tight circle, the bottoms of his shoes firmly attached to the wood.
“I see you have your own transportation. Why don’t you lead the way, while I carry the others?” Giro’s voice wasn’t mean or sarcastic by any measure, but it still made a tinge of red creep into Lu’s cheeks.
He turned to face the group, mildly abashed. Comport, comport! This is no time to be fooling around; we’re on official sect business. “Of course, senior. You’re certain you want to take all three? I have room for one more.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage.” Ah, there was the sardonic tone. “Please, go ahead.”
Lu nodded, and with a small burst of will rose further into the air. Ten metres, twenty metres, thirty…
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When he levelled out he was, by his estimation, slightly over a tenth of a kilometre above the ground. With one lingering look below he accelerated north, pushing the treasure to its maximum speed. A core disciple, especially one specialised as a scout, will be able to keep up even with passengers.
…Probably.
He shook his head, and put any doubt behind him as golden fields rushed by below. Already the mountain was beginning to recede into the distance; his new treasure wasn’t just easy to use, it was fast.
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That looks like the spot – not that I have to guess. While he was reasonably certain he could have found it through sight alone, for a few kilometres now Lu had been following his nose more than his eyes.
There was definitely a breach nearby, his Comprehension could smell it.
Very deep in the woods. I wonder, is that on purpose? We need to use divinations to see across the reality barrier, so if the Salt divinities are deliberately choosing out-of-the-way spots it implies they have an equivalent ability.
Or maybe they just breached through at random, and then closed them down if they ended up in the middle of a city or some such. Anyway, I suppose it’s time to see how good at landing I am.
Lu descended towards the strongest concentration of ki, no fear in his heart. Even if he completely failed to control the treasure, he had movement arts and innate durability to soften his landing – so when he touched down without trouble, he merely nodded to himself and stowed his treasure in his purse.
It was not difficult to pinpoint the breach, even though it was nearly perfectly camouflaged under the dense growth. Lu merely had to follow the ephemeral scent drifting on the wind. So, this is a wild breach. Is that what the original looked like, before they attached the gate array?
Nestled under the roots of a venerable old tree was a sort of… crack, almost. It was very strange to look at; there didn’t seem to be any comprehensible dimensions to the thing, no height or width or depth. It completely failed to obscure anything behind it despite being opaque – which was also something of a head-scratcher, because Lu hadn’t the slightest clue what colour the thing was. I suppose I must be looking into the liminal space right now – that’s why it doesn’t conform to any rules of physics.
As he was pondering, a presence entered the boundaries of his spiritual sense; Giro, along with the four students. The young Hom How panted lightly, giving some clue as to the method their senior had used to transport them.
Lu stepped away from the tree. “Marching Song?”
Giro’s head shook minutely. “A bit more subtle than that. We’re attempting to be at least slightly discrete, after all.”
Lu nodded. “Of course, senior brother.” His eyes went back to the breach, and the thick ki spilling out and clashing with the thinner local qi. To his spiritual senses it was like molasses dropped into cold water, dissolving only reluctantly. “Is there anything else, or should I begin?”
Giro waved him off. “Feel free. I’ll be nearby, keeping the wildlife away.”
He turned, and between one step and another disappeared. Lu’s eyes tore themselves from the undulating hole in reality to face the remaining four disciples.
In the dappled light of the deep woods, their demeanours had changed just slightly. Jiendao had her sense strained to its limits, and her eyes were scanning the treeline relentlessly. The twins were no longer perfectly in sync – one, the second realm, was noticeably more stoic than the other, his face remaining placid where the other’s was tight and wary.
But the biggest change was in Hom How. He seemed, for whatever reason, to be much more at ease here in the deadly forest than at home in the sect. Hmm. Interesting.
…But let’s ignore that for now. It’s my first time teaching actual disciples – let’s make a good first impression!
Lu cleared his throat, drawing their attention. “Greetings, students. As I said before, my name is Lu, and I will be playing the part of your instructor for the time being.” Pause for effect. “Given that you have been disciples for some time already, I feel no need to go over the most basic of basics. Instead, let’s start with a simple question: which of you can feel the breach from where you stand?”
I’m nine-tenths certain that none of them were paying me any attention when they arrived – the threat of beasts was their priority. So they shouldn’t be able to cheat by remembering what I was looking at.
Immediately the three senses that weren’t fully extended did so. Jiendao and the twins pointed to the tree, Hom How’s finger joining theirs a second later.
But Lu shook his head. “No cheating, now. This is for your benefit; lying about the extent of your abilities will only make it harder for me to teach you.”
The first realm twin’s finger went down, and then the young man’s with great reluctance. Hom How seemed to slump without moving, his nervousness from twenty minutes ago returning.
“Alright, that’s better.” The higher realms can extend their senses far enough, which gives them an advantage – but it seems none of them are using their consumptions, or they wouldn’t need to use their spiritual senses at all. “Jiendao- and, ah, what is your name junior brother?”
“Kai Hiien, sir.” Ah, so Kai Hiien is the higher realm and Ban Do is the lower.
“Kai Hiien, thank you. You and Lady Jiendao, I want you to try and sense the ki without using your spiritual sense. You two as well.”
Ban Do touched a finger to his lip. “Sense the foreign energy without using our sense, sir?”
A nod. “Yes, exactly. I can feel that you’ve all started on the road of consumption – and you’ve spent an entire year on Salt. You should be capable of at least discerning the presence of ki. Feel free to move closer to the breach, if you must.”
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His first day as a teacher of human students was, for the most part, not particularly interesting. Jiendao was able to sense ki almost immediately, and Kai Hiien soon after, which immediately divided the class in two – because try as they might, the other two seemed completely incapable of it, even when they stood right in the thickest part of the energy.
Lu set the two overachievers aside with instructions to meditate and draw in ki, and spent the rest of the day focusing on Ban Do and Hom How.
So as the setting sun painted their surroundings in dull golden hues, it was with great reluctance that Lu admitted to himself that he was maybe less of a great teacher than he had thought.
I don’t understand. Teaching Cobo wasn’t like this – sure, he was using an energy his body was suited for, but that doesn’t explain this discrepancy. I also advanced my own consumption without too much trouble, so why..?
Maybe it’s just drive? It probably isn’t a coincidence that the two with higher cultivation seem better, if only slightly, at consumption; they might just have been putting more effort in.
But something about that explanation rang hollow to Lu’s intuition. It isn’t their reserves, they’re all bottom of the barrel. If we measure them like cultivators, they’ve condensed a dantian and then hit a brick wall. All four of them.
Maybe it’s differences in Comprehension? My spacial consumption might be uniquely suited for sensing things…
He mentally threw his hands up. No, I’m speculating too much. I need to go all the way back to the starting line and begin from there.
He flared his sense to draw his student’s attention, and did his best to put on a mysterious senior’s air as they lined up. “Alright, I think this was a passable first day. But before I release you to set up shelter for the night, let us wind down by getting to know each other a little bit. I would like to hear a little more about your experiences on Salt, and how you came to practice consumption.”
Some small amount of unsettledness passed through the group. But then Jiendao, giving her peers a look, stepped forward.