1. Chapter 2

Three of the other children in the village eventually became cultivators after sacrificing their most treasured possession for a spiritual stone. Twelve of the children had made the sacrifice to Tan’s father, but only three had managed to draw the spirit into their bodies.

Those three became Tan’s closest friends, while the rest of the children drifted away. It only made sense, they couldn’t keep up with their physical games, and their days were occupied with the everyday mortal toils which occupied them and their parents.

Each of the children were given the same opportunity. They were asked for their most valuable possession. Girls gave up dolls, the boys gave up wooden swords and toys. Those who gave up actual valuables were turned away, saying that they did not understand what was being asked of them and to return once they did.

The dolls were burnt. The wooden swords broken. The fancy dresses were torn into shreds and used as rags. All of this was done before the children’s eyes.

“What did Tan give up to get his stone?” asked one of the children, who was struggling to hold back tears after seeing their prized possession destroyed.

“His birthday,” Tan’s father had answered.

The children glanced at Tan, but then nodded. That was a precious thing to give up indeed.

Once the object had been sacrificed, they were shown to a shed which was filled with stones. Many different kinds of stones. Different colors and shapes. Some of them clear as crystal or glass, others solid and opaque. They were told to take their time and select their favorite of all of the stones.

Many of the children hesitated at this point for long minutes. The oldest child, a boy of fifteen, hesitated for hours. But the three children who bonded their stone did not hesitate. They looked at each of the stones in turn, but often did not look through all of them before grabbing one of the stones and saying “I want this one!”

Tan’s father would watch the choice and nod solemnly. “That is a very good choice,” he would say.

“Is it a strong spirit inside it?”

“It’s middling strength, but they’re all middling strength. The important thing is that you chose it, and perhaps it chose you as well. Now let me show you the method of drawing the spirit out of the stone and into your body.”

Tan did not get to see this part. It would only confuse him, his father said, since it would be different for the cultivators of the village children than it would be for him. Until he was old enough to really appreciate the differences between the cultivation styles of Earth, Water, Fire and Air, it was best for him not to learn of any except for his chosen path.

Unlike Tan, whom his father hadn’t actually expected to bond with his spirit for a few years, the other children in the village were all also given mats with intricate patterns woven into them by Tan’s mother. Tan’s mother who was, apparently, a powerful cultivator in her own right, having tamed a water spirit in her youth.

Tan had had no idea before she told him. She had simply laughed and said “You did not think it strange that the water itself would bathe you for me? That it was always the perfect temperature no matter how long you’d been in the tub? That no matter how dirty you were going into the tub, the water was always clean after you came out as when you went in?”

Tan had scratched his head and squinted at her. “Isn’t that normal?”

“I think you’re old enough to bathe yourself, and then you can find out for yourself what a normal bath is like,” she teased him.

It turned out he wasn’t really old enough to bathe himself, but she hadn’t really meant to quit that parental task quite yet anyway. But he had learned his lesson; what a normal bath with normal water was like. Not the enchanted water that his mother kept.

The enchanted water was much better.

The mats that she wove for the children of the village were matched to the stone that they took, and they were each designed to draw out the spirit of the stone and assist the child with taking it into their bodies. They were each warned that once the process began in earnest they must continue until the end, whether or not they were on the mat. It would be easiest and best, however, if they were to always cultivate on the mat with their rock.

So it became a normal thing in the green-grass village of the western empire to see children carrying around a mat and a rock, or sitting and meditating with those two items.

Pao was the first of the children to awaken his spirit and successfully draw it into his body. Pao was four years older than Tan, and when he excitedly returned to Tan’s house to announce his success, he still stank from the impurities that he sweated out. Tan’s mother scolded him for showing up in such a state and ordered him to the river to remedy the problem, sending Tan to the boy’s house to fetch a clean set of clothes.

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Tan didn’t really mind the errand, as it let him go fast. He liked going fast, using the power of his spirit to move so swiftly that to a mortal eye he blurred into multiple images. To him, everything slowed down when he was in that state. Colors were brighter, sounds were clearer, smells were smellier. That last aspect wasn’t always so fun, but sometimes it was. Like running through a field of flowers.

And when he was in that state, his control over his body was sublime. That was what his father called the state, sublimation. Well, not really. His father called it the sublime state of clarity, but Tan called it sublimation because it was shorter. And his father said that his word for being that way wasn’t entirely incorrect either, so he never argued the point.

He returned to find a less smelly Pao with a towel wrapped around his waist as he excitedly spoke with Tan’s parents. His mother and father each exchanged looks, and then they interrupted the boy’s ranting explanation on how his transformation had went.

“Pao, you’re a cultivator now,” Tan’s father said.

“Yes, Mister Shen. I know that.”

“Do you understand what that means? Do you know why it was that I asked for your most precious possession before I taught you how to bind a spirit?” the man asked.

The boy paused, sensing a trick question. “It was a, a, what do you call it. A sac something.”

“A sacrifice, yes. To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting any of the village children to learn anything from my lessons beyond ‘don’t give Tren Shen your stuff because he’ll break it.’ But there was more to it. Because a normal cultivator can’t live a normal life and continue to cultivate. You have another sacrifice to make. You have to choose between the path that you’ve set one foot upon in becoming a cultivator, and your family.”

“My family?” Pao said, sounding aghast. He suddenly recalled some of the stories that he’d heard about demonic cultivation and Tan’s father cut that thought off as soon as he saw it on the boy’s face.

“I mean that if you stay at home, in this village, without constant guidance, you’ll wither on the vine. You can return to visit. Especially at first. But if you want to truly develop your gift, you’ll have to live with a master to teach you how. Tan has me and Wensho to help him develop his skill. Who do you have?”

Pao was quiet for a moment. “I have you too,” he argued. “Can’t I just come visit and get my lessons?”

“No. You must pay for your lessons with your labor,” Tan’s father said, his heart hardened to the effect that his words would have on the boy. “I’ll pay you five copper and your parents two silver per month. In exchange you work on my farm instead of theirs, and you get your cultivation lessons. And room and board, as well.”

Pao swallowed, but he knew that it was a good deal. Two silver five copper was twice what a man would make as a farmhand, and that was ignoring the lessons, the food, and the shelter that the Shens were offering him.

But he’d have to leave his parents behind.

Not far behind. It was only a run to the village and back and he’d be able to see them whenever his chores allowed. As a cultivator, if he could move half as fast as Tan could now, then it would only take him ten minutes to visit.

“I’ll do it.”

“Unfortunately, Pao, you’re nine years old and you can’t make that sort of decision on your own,” Wensho, Tan’s mother said. She got up. “Let us walk to the village together and discuss things along the way, and then we will present my husband’s offer to your parents and see what they have to say. If they agree, then it will be official and you will move to our place once we have built you a room.”

“Can I come?” Tan asked, eager to be a part of the action and see how the drama unfolded.

“I think not,” Tren, Tan’s father, said. “This is a private matter between Pao and his parents. You wouldn’t like it if we discussed private matters of yours in front of your friends, would you?”

“I don’t have any private matters,” Tan declared proudly.

“Oh? So then you never wet the bed?” his mother teased.

“No I don’t!” he shouted. But he got their message. There were some things his parents knew that he wouldn’t want his friends knowing, and while his curiosity was intense, he restrained himself from following behind Pao and his mother.

Instead he followed his father out and got another lesson about the meaning of air and the differences of the winds.

“Your father is a very wise man,” Zephyr commented to him one evening after their lessons. “To think that he understands the Dao of the Azure Sky so well despite being a man of the earth!”

“He just talks in circles and nonsense,” Tan argued.

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” Zephyr agreed. “When you aren’t otherwise occupied, you should think closely on his lessons. Especially the ones that he repeats. He does not follow your Dao, but he does understand it well enough to see you far along your path. Think upon the nonsense that he speaks to you until it’s not nonsense any longer.”

Tan pouted, but he listened to his spirits advice. When he wasn’t busy with his chores or actively meditating, he thought about how the difference between a gentle caress of a summer breeze and the harsh blizzard that he’d once had to venture out in to use the outhouse. How it was the same air, but with differences to it.

Different times. Different seasons. Different meanings. Different feelings.

He thought about it until his head hurt.

And it never did really make sense.

After all, he was only five years old.