Chapter 18

Won gasped in bursts as he caught his breath. He was acutely aware that he and his sister were weaker than the other two boys of their party, but he hadn’t realized how much of a difference it would make on their journey to help Tan find spiritual stones. He hadn’t realized how much of a difference it would make simply in keeping up with the inexhaustible preteens.

Tan turned everything into a race. Which he won, because he was so damn fast it wasn’t fair. Pao compensated by turning everything into a marathon, which he won, because he was so damn sturdy that he could keep running mile after mile.

Won and Ko, by comparison, were almost…

Mortal.

Won frowned. He refused to give in. He might have started cultivating three years too late to be on the level of the two longer-term residents of the Shen family farm, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t catch up.

He had noticed something recently. It had come unexpectedly when he had been wondering on the nature of fuel. He still hadn’t figured out the secret to the eternal flame that burned at the top of the cultivation hill, but he thought that this new discovery would bring him a little bit closer to it.

There was fire in everything.

There was fire Qi in the air, in the earth, and even in the water. It wasn’t very much, especially not in water. But it was there.

He set his hand upon a stone that was positioned so that it would soak in the sunlight for most of the day and he pulled lightly on the Qi within it. Too hard and he couldn’t grip it, too soft and it wouldn’t budge. But it had accumulated a significant amount of Qi from sitting in the sun over the years, and once he pulled the Qi loose he greedily drank it down.

It wasn’t a spirit stone. Just a regular stone rich in fire Qi. He felt better after consuming the accumulated power, and he said a silent thanks to the stone before running off, leaving it behind to resume accumulating the sun’s Qi, just as it had for countless years before.

That was the weakness of fire, he reflected. Like the other elements, he had discovered that it was everywhere. But there wasn’t as much of it outside of actual burning things, when the Qi turned violent and burst into life, radiating outwards in a spiral of power. That power was easy to control. To him, at least.

Fire Qi came out of the air the easiest. Then stone and water were more difficult, becoming progressively more difficult as things became more wet. Wood had a significant amount of fire in it, which surprised him at first before Master Shen had asked him why he thought plants needed sunlight to grow. But plants were jealous with the fire Qi that they cultivated and taking it from them would kill the plant if he wasn’t careful.

Or if he didn’t care. But he was born in a farming village and was working on a farm for a cultivator of the Dao of the Bountiful Harvest, so he knew that he ought to care. For appearances sake if nothing else.

He pushed through the brush, following the trail of the other kids who had left him behind for the moment, pondering his dao.

Why was there fire in everything? Was it because of the sun? What did it mean?

He frowned, but the answers to most of his questions remained outside his grasp.

He caught up to his sister, who had likewise stopped to catch her breath for a moment.

“You don’t think we’ll get lost, do you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “They wouldn’t really leave us behind. And they can both find us pretty easy by magic. Tan can sense our breaths a bit, I think. And Pao can feel our footsteps. They’re both much further along their paths than we are.”

“They started earlier,” Won said defensively.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I didn’t say that they didn’t,” Ko said. “You know, not everything has to be a competition. You’re such a boy.”

“You get dragged into their races just as much as I do,” Won pouted.

“I know. Not everything has to be a competition, but somethings do. Even when the outcome is as obvious as water flowing downstream,” she said.

“You’re just saying that to sound like Mistress Shen,” he said.

“Did it work?”

“No, she sounds way more profound when she makes water metaphors,” Won teased. “You’re a hundred years too early to imitate her.”

Ko was quiet for a moment. “How old do you think they really are?” she asked eventually.

Won glanced at her like she was stupid, and then he stopped. He hadn’t even thought of it, and his mind raced as he went through the implications.

The Shens must have been older than they looked. Not the kids, the kids were probably really the age that they said they were. But Tren and Wensho had moved to the village when Won’s parents were little. It might have even been before they were born, now that he thought about it. He’d never really paid attention to the gossip about how the couple looked younger than they should when he’d been little, and then they had been revealed to the village as hidden masters and the topic had vanished entirely.

It seemed that Ko remembered where he had forgotten.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“They must be old to be as strong as they are,” she said.

“How strong do you think they really are?” he asked his sister.

“Strong. Maybe scary strong, if they weren’t so nice. We’re very lucky to have them as masters, I think,” Ko said.

“Yeah. And they’re the ones who gave us Blaze and Washy in the first place,” he said, saying the names that the twins had picked out for their previously unnamed spirits.

“I overheard Master Shen talking to Tan about that,” Ko said, lowering her voice. “They’re not weak spirits like he told us at first. To most people our spirits are actually very strong.”

“Not as strong as Zephyr,” Won said glumly.

“No. Don’t be jealous of him,” Ko scolded.

“It’s hard not to be when he’s constantly throwing his power in our face,” Won said.

“He’s not even aware that he’s doing it, Won,” Ko said. “Remember that he’s younger than us, and that his parents are so humble that he doesn’t realize what it’s like outside his home. Our own parents are scared of us now and pay us homage like we’ve become different people.”

Won frowned and nodded. Unlike Pao, he hadn’t exactly been torn up about Master Shen’s requirements that the twins come to live with his family in exchange for their education. But he had expected his parents to be more upset over the decision, rather than seeming eager to be rid of their own children.

“We’re never going to catch up to him, are we?” Won asked.

“Not unless he suddenly stops trying altogether,” Ko predicted. “I’m aiming to catch up to Pao, not him. I think it’s important to have realistic goals.”

Won considered the matter for a moment, then said “Well I think it’s important to have unrealistic goals, so I’m going to aim to surpass both of them.”

Ko grinned. “Come on. They’ll be waiting for us.”

So the twins set off at a jog after having recovered. They caught up with the boys, who as Ko had said were waiting for them further down the path. They had come to a stream and were refilling their waterskins.

“I don’t see how we’re supposed to find a spirit stone if all we’re doing is racing constantly,” Pao said to the younger boy. The argument had been going on for some time.

“Father said that he picked the closest fifty miles clean of spirit stones and put them all in the shed,” Tan explained. “So we have to go more than fifty miles before we find anything.”

“He also says that nature hates a vacuum, which is why he did that in the first place. He concentrated the existing spirits to give new ones a place to settle down and live to rejuvenate the land,” Pao pointed out. “He made his collection before you were even born, Tan. There should be new spirit stones in the lands around your home by now.”

“But they’ll be young and weak,” Tan said. “I want to repay the stones that I cost my parents with stones that are of the same value. Father says I don’t have to, that I can give him lesser spirit stones. But I don’t want to. I want to impress him when we come home and have him say ‘oh my son, these are so much better than the ones we paid the Zang family! I am so proud of you!’”

Pao considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay. But if you do find a weaker stone, pick it up anyway. Because I don’t want to be doing this for five years while you look for the strongest spirits in the province.”

“Yeah, I know. When we go ten more miles we’ll make camp, and we’ll spend the rest of the day looking,” Tan promised.

Won and Ko groaned because their leader had decided that they were going at least ten miles further.

And of course, because they were children, it would be a race.