Chapter 44
Over the next few weeks, the children of the Shen farm would often glare at each other and, for a second, pretend that they wanted to kill each other. It was just pretend, because they couldn’t actually mean it . Not yet. But they were learning, and slowly they were honing their ability to project intent to the point where they would notice someone glaring daggers at them from across the room even with their backs turned.
It was educational from both sides of the glare. One child was learning to project their intent, the other to sense it. The adults watched on with amusement, occasionally giving a word of advice.
Tren also dueled with them and displayed his intent to the children. Once and only once. Tan’s heart stopped when his father unveiled his intent against him. The other three children ran away screaming. Won hid in the complex under the cultivation hill that had been built for the rabbit and wouldn’t come out for twenty minutes.
Tren scratched his nose afterwards and apologized for “getting a little carried away.” Wensho smacked him when she heard about it, and informed the children that she had been holding back, which was a detail she hadn’t shared before.
Tren had not, and the difference between Wensho’s partial intent and Tren’s full blast was the difference between a warm breeze and a blast furnace.
Still, both demonstrations gave the children something to aspire to, and they worked tirelessly.
Hundreds of miles away, the Zang family was preparing for their upcoming audience with the emperor. Brand new clothes were purchased for everyone, the embroidery proclaiming their cultivation status for all to see proudly.
They did not dare wear the embroidery of a grandmaster, as the Shens did. That was an invitation to be challenged by anyone who wished to earn the bragging rights of defeating them. The day that the Shens had shown up with two grandmasters, a husband and a wife, had forced the Zangs to seriously reconsider their position. Such clothes were not worn lightly, and the subsequent negotiations had proven that the Shens were worthy of them.
But that was long ago at this point, and the immediate concern was making a good impression. So they humbly embroidered their advancement in clear terms, using one of the most common measures for their current status.
Toh was in the gold realm, her husband Mahn in the Silver. Kora had just entered the profound, which placed her in the seventh stage of the initiate’s realm according to how the Shens saw things. Shoa, Toh’s mother, had formed her core while she was in the Silver realm and regretted it, for she was now unable to progress and achieve true immortality.
Shoa was powerful, yes, but much of the power was located in her core and not her spirit. Her body would eventually fail her, and she was unable to commune with her spirit to grow stronger and impress her memories into it to form a nascent soul. Without that, she couldn’t reincarnate with her memories intact, which was the most common method of immortality for those who were unable to reach the stage of divinity or ascension.
Still, to most of the world she was a force to be reckoned with, and so she joined the procession to the capital as they rode in style, arriving the week before the audience. Sean had arrived before them and had spent some time sifting through the rumors of court and the commoners of the city, which were often one in the same, but not always.
The Zang family’s audience was discussed at court, but not among the commoners. None of them particularly cared, and those who were aware of it dismissed it as unimportant. The courtiers gave it more credence, but only because they, too, had never heard of the Zangs and were curious to place faces to the names.
On the day of the audience, Kora, with her mother Toh and her father Mahn, as well as her grandmother, appeared at the front entrance to the palace. They announced their presence to the guards, who rang the gong and opened the main gate to allow them inside. They entered the courtyard, which was lined on each side by servants dressed in finery.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Kora blushed as she walked between the beautiful men and women in clothes that outshone her own. However, none of the servants’ clothing was embroidered. She did not know if that was because they were not cultivators, or if they were simply choosing not to publicly show their advancement.
A seneschal appeared at the end of the procession. He bowed low to the Zangs. An old man but still spry, he wore cloth fo silver and jewelry of gold, rubies dangling from his earrings.
“I welcome the Zang family to the imperial court. My name is Bashan, and I shall be your guide. Your audience will begin in two hours. In the meantime, you shall bathe and be made presentable for an audience with the emperor himself,” the seneschal explained.
Kora frowned, for she had just bathed that morning and was wearing the finest clothes she owned. However, she followed the seneschal into the palace. Her father was led away to the men’s bathing area, while she, her mother, and her grandmother were shown to the richest spiritual hot spring that Kora had ever seen.
The fire Qi that boiled off of it was delicious, and Kora was left mourning the fact that she had only the time it would take to bathe to enjoy it. Worse, female servants appeared to take her measurements. They would prepare her with clothes given by the emperor himself, they explained. She was to bathe, and when she finished they would help her dress in her new finery.
So she disrobed, and the three women stepped into the bath.
Toh was slightly uncomfortable, for although the spring was rich with water Qi, it was more fire aspect ed than she was accustomed to. She spent much of her efforts trying to separate the two forces.
Shoa had less trouble. Like her daughter, she cultivated water with a specialization towards ice, but the water Qi in the bath was so rich that it wasn’t difficult for her to take in, and she would grind the fire Qi down in her core later.
For Kora, it was like drinking in liquid love. She closed her eyes and submerged herself entirely, leaving just her nose above water for air.
She broke through to the next stage, reaching the third stage of the profound realm. Or the eighth stage of the initiate’s realm, if you used that metric.
The servants, noticing her breakthrough, informed the court that the Zang family audience would be delayed. The courtiers scoffed at the faux pas of cultivating in the imperial spring, looking forward to mocking them for the social mistake.
When she came back to herself, Kora was deeply embarrassed that she had caused a delay, but the servants assured her that it was no trouble. She was dressed in the finest kimono she had ever seen. It was light as a feather and softer than the down of a gosling. It bore no embroidery when she put it on, but to her surprise, once she was wearing it, the threads changed color and revealed a hidden character.
She did not know what the character meant, but the courtiers who saw her once she emerged into the court did a slight double-take to see it there. They were not impressed by her mother, grandmother, or father, however, who were wearing similar clothing with their own symbols glowing on their backs and breasts.
The court was filled with close to three hundred people, and the Zangs were lead in front of them all before the screens which separated the rabble from the emperor himself. Kora could sense a faint amount of spirituality from the person sitting on the other side of the screen, but it was suppressed so tightly that --
A sudden burst of … something. Kora gasped and fell to her knees, her body telling herself that it was on fire even though it was not. She almost screamed, but she got control of herself before the sound escaped her throat. She gasped for a moment.
“Apologies,” the figure behind the screen said in a sonorous voice. “We was merely taking your measure. we approve. As a token of my approval, we award you the Treatise of the Rising Sun, a bush of ever-burning blackberries to be planted in the courtyard of your family’s main estate, and seven days of mentorship with the fire expert known as Renton Shen. You may leave our presence now.”
And just like that the imperial audience was over before the Zangs had said one word before the court.
The courtiers gasped at the scandal of it all. The girl had failed to withstand the emperors intent and yet she’d been rewarded? Handsomely rewarded? Nobody knew who Renton Shen was, but the other two rewards were priceless!