Zihan dismissed the girls when they returned to Te’Klub’s. “Hang out here or go about your business, I don’t care.” Zihan told them after they’d eaten. “Just be back here in an hour or two.” He looked at Yi Cao. “We won’t be longer than that.”
Yi Cao’s belly churned uneasily as he got up and followed Zihan down the corridor towards their room, and not just from the sludgy dumplings served to them by the bartender. His hand went to the source tucked under his shirt as Zihan opened their door and it stayed there as he stepped inside.
“Time to cultivate.” Zihan told him once the door was closed.
Yi Cao’s hand tightened around the little amulet.
“I can’t!” He shouted. “You broke it!”
He tried to rip the thing off but what should have been a smooth motion turned into an awkward fumbling with the chain around his neck until he threw the little stone onto the bed.
He stood there, breathing heavily while the source sat rippling gently between them.
Zihan raised a brow. “That’s it?” He asked. “No swearing? You’re not going to call me a pig-fucker or insult my mother?”
Yi Cao crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like foul language.”
“Really?” Zihan asked. He picked up the amulet and examined it. “You should try it. It’s fucking relaxing.”
Yi Cao had a sudden and vivid memory of his mother holding him tightly by the arm when he’d been no taller than her hip, bending over him and holding a finger between them. Cursing is for fools, She’d told him, And I don’t raise fools.
It was the first memory, in a long time, in which he could see her face.
“Fucking rural.”
Yi Cao looked up from his unexpected reverie to find Zihan examining the source more closely. “Things not broken.” He flipped the source on its chain into the palm of one hand and held it so it faced Yi Cao. The script scorched into its face lit with a silver light and the ripples around the stone expanded briefly before being sucked away into Zihan’s palm.
Zihan grimaced and tossed the stone back onto the bed while shaking out his hand, brief ripples spreading from his fingers. “Not my aspect.” Zihan said as the rippling slowed and the script dulled on the source’s surface.
Yi Cao scowled and picked up the off-blue stone to study the script.
“You don’t know anything about scripting do you?” Zihan asked.
Yi Cao just looked at him.
Zihan rolled his eyes. “Should’ve fucking known.” He pointed to an empty corner of the room and tossed himself onto the bed. “Sit.” He said, then waved at the stone. “And put that on.”
Yi Cao did as he was told, ignoring the way the carpet squished as he took up the lotus position on the floor.
Zihan propped himself up on one elbow and studied Yi Cao while one hand picked at a loose string in the blankets beneath him.
“That’s a lock.” He said eventually. He waved to the source at Yi Cao’s neck and Yi Cao looked down at it. “You need a key to open it.”
Yi Cao looked back up at Zihan and found it harder than he anticipated to keep from scowling. “And… you have the key?” He asked.
Zihan smirked. “In a manner of speaking.” He turned his attention to the thread between his fingers while Yi Cao held himself still.
The Young Master finally incinerated the thread in a puff of smoke and turned his attention back to Yi Cao. “You tried cultivating with it, didn’t you?” He asked.
Yi Cao gave him a flat look.
“How’d that feel?”
Yi Cao felt his lips thin in, he realized now, an unconscious imitation of his mother as he now remembered her best. “Guess.” He replied.
Zihan rolled onto his back then kicked himself into a sitting position. “I don’t need to guess.” He said. “It’s Ki Deprivation. You pretty much experience it anytime you empty a node and have to refill it. Not a lot of fun.”
“No.” Yi Cao replied. “You said something about a key?”
Zihan smirked again, then he held up his hand. “It’s a scripture.” He said. “Nothing special. Keeps people from just picking up your weapon from a battlefield or gaining access to your sect’s secret techniques just from claiming one of their sources in a raid. You know how scripts work generally, yes?”
“They redirect Ki.” Yi Cao replied. “Like channels.”
Zihan shrugged. “Basically. Channels cut into objects instead of flesh. Those ones though,” he gestured to the source at Yi Cao’s neck, “those ones are grab all the Ki in the stone, and then send it nowhere, because they’re incomplete, incomplete, that is, until you incorporate their other half into your foundation.”
“Clever.” Yi Cao said levelly.
Zihan grinned. “Right?”
Yi Cao lifted a hand to cup the source as the Young Master had when he activated the script then looked at the stone before turning pointedly to Zihan.
Zihan watched him with a bemused smile.
Yi Cao sighed and dropped his hand back into his lap, letting the stone fall sharply against his chest. “What exactly are we doing here?” He asked. “Are you going to teach me the scripture?”
Zihan grinned and reached into his half cloak. “What scripture do you use?” He asked.
“We used the sect scriptures.” Yi Cao replied. He thought back to the notes in the damaged scriptures kept in the junior disciple’s barracks. “The Ancestral Garden Yellow Foundation Scripture.”
Zihan snorted as he pulled out his wallet. “That old bag’s color coded scriptures? How far along are you?” He dialed something up on the wallet and it vomited out a mess of yellow parchment and ink stained brushes onto the bed behind him. He slid one piece of parchment out of the mess and glanced at it before turning it over and offering Yi Cao the blank side. “Think you could draw it?”
Yi Cao took the paper and looked at it, trying to visualize the progress he’d made inscribing the scripture into the musculature of his limbs and bones. Zihan offered him a black stick and Yi Cao looked up sharply at him.
“A technomancer’s brush.” Zihan said. He clicked a mechanism at the back several times making a black point at the tip vanish and reappear. He offered it to Yi Cao again with a shrug. “Seems like a pain to wait for real ink to soften.”
Yi Cao took the pointed brush and clicked it once experimentally before looking back up at Zihan.
“Are you planning on giving me cultivation pointers?” Yi Cao asked.
Zihan rolled his eyes. “No. Of course not. I’m planning on ridiculing you for your poverty and then leaving you with a shitty scripture.” He laid back on one elbow and gestured to the piece of paper again. “Would you draw out your progress already? I felt every attempt you made at cultivating through our oath, and I’m tired of it. It’s time I accumulated some proper karma so I don’t get blasted by the heaven just for asking you to do something perfectly reasonable, like purchase a weapon, in the future.”
Yi Cao looked back at his parchment and set the technomancer’s brush to its surface. He and the other junior disciples had been taught to draw their scripture in sand but the technomancer’s brush was a finer thing than anything Yi Cao had ever used for the task. His first brush strokes were shaky and uncertain and required him to go slower as he completed the line that existed from the tip of each pinky across his shoulder blades, looping around each joint in a small whorl.
He paused to examine his work as he finished the line and visualized the twin meridians running along either side of his spine to connect his shoulders to his hips, or the lines that were supposed to be twins, and merely existed along the right side in what he’d completed of the scripture so far.
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He looked up at Zihan. “Do you really know enough to be telling me what to do with my cultivation?” He asked.
Zihan scratched the side of his nose and studied Yi Cao. “You’ve been cultivating for what? How many years?”
“Twelve.” Yi Cao replied.
“Right, and in that time, you’ve probably had maybe two or three lessons a week in a hall full of other disciples?”
Yi Cao’s lips thinned. “Once a month.” He replied.
“Right.” Zihan gestured to himself. “I’ve been cultivating for my entire life. Not a day went by when I didn’t have a tutor examining me, teaching me some principle of cultivation, or testing me in their application. Your scripture for example,” he gestured and Yi Cao looked down at the half completed drawing. “The color coded scripture? It’s part of a series devised by a third class immortal trying to impress the Threefold Forged Thunder to sponsor a sect he wanted to form. He came up with a whole host of foundations, each one with different aspects and conditions in mind. The Three Fold Forged Fuckstick wasn’t impressed, so the scriptures were mostly forgotten until some trading fuckery went down that had him pissed enough to start distributing the scriptures to virtually anyone and everyone. They came in three colors. Yellow, Red, and Green. Green was for high density environments, the kind where you’re as likely to get eaten alive by the Ki as complete your foundation, while Yellow was intended for virtual Ki deserts, and the Ancestral Garden cycle was, at least so I can assume, intended for use in graveyards. Easy grottos to find as long as you live somewhere with a lot of people, though it hardly matters once the Ki density is low enough. You see his scriptures a lot in cheap libraries these days or trash piles. Mostly trash piles.” He winked at Yi Cao. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
Yi Cao looked at his half drawn foundation.
“Frankly, you’re behind.” Zihan went on. “The pistol helps, but if we want you to get to a place where you’ll be useful in our adventures, we need you to progress. That means finding you a scripture that won’t get screwed up by the progress you’ve already made while taking advantage of the more powerful source you now have access too. The yellow scriptures are made to crawl. We want you to run.”
He held out a hand and Yi Cao placed the brush into it. Zihan manipulated it until he held it cradled in the crook of his thumb, tip between thumb and forefinger. “Like this.” He said. “Not like a brush.”
He handed it back to Yi Cao and Yi Cao rearranged it as he’d been instructed then added the long line that represented the channel down his back.
“What scripture do you use?” Yi Cao asked.
When there was no answer he looked up to find Zihan pensive and grimacing. When he realized Yi Cao was staring at him he met his eyes and held them for a moment before answering.
“The Closed Lotus Scripture.” He said with some distaste.
Yi Cao looked at him blankly.
“Nothing to say?” Zihan asked.
“What would I say?” Yi Cao replied.
Zihan snorted and flopped back onto the bed. “I suppose so. Fucking rube. I forgot you don’t know anything about cultivation.” He pulled out one of his remaining smokers and fiddled with it while Yi Cao turned back to his diagram.
“It’s made for women.” Zihan said eventually. “One of the only scriptures for them in the Northern Continent. My father developed it and… well… let’s just say I got stuck with it. Turns out it didn’t require too many modifications for masculine physiology, or maybe it was the other way around. Whose to say.”
Yi Cao made a last few lines detailing the work he’d done on his hands while showing his brother how to cultivate then clicked the brush to retract the tip back into the solid tube. “I’m done.” He said.
Zihan tucked his smoke stick away and rolled over to take the paper from him. He held it over him like a canopy as he examined the lines, nodding to himself.
“About what I expected.” He said. “You did an outline first, that’s smart. Gives you some of the benefits early and left you options if you found a better scripture later. I assume this is supposed to have a twin?” He tapped at the channel running along Yi Cao’s back.
Yi Cao nodded.
“Well, that’s doable then. You’re halfway to establishing a Four Corners foundation, but you haven’t finished any of the hallmarks which means we can transition you to an Interior Halo scripture without worrying about the interference.”
Zihan extended a hand for the brush and Yi Cao relinquished it to him then opened his mouth to ask a question and hesitated.
“What’s the difference?” He asked eventually.
“Mostly it’s your node placement.” Zihan replied. He clicked the brush open then rolled onto his stomach to sketch something into the margin of the sheet. “There are some differences in performance. Scholars from the Western Continent sometimes call them The Four, or Heavenly, Warrior, Sword, and Earth foundations for the patterns of Ki movement, each with a hundred different scriptures wrapped up around them, but it really comes down to just four ways to accomplish the same thing, which is establish a working network of channels to support your nodes in the most efficient manner possible. Your Yellow whatever scripture would have had you placing a node in each of your limbs and then four at your center with three of them arranged around what would, theoretically, eventually become your inner world. What you’d find is that those central nodes recharge faster than the ones in your limbs while the ones in your limbs can project into techniques faster. A Warrior foundation. Optimized for action. Not immortality.”
He waved his brush. “The difference is marginal though. The kind of thing that only really matters when you’re choosing which node to form first, or as an immortal when a second is the same thing as a century, but,” He rolled onto his back and fished in his cloak again for the void wallet. “The scripture we’ll have you use will position your nodes in a ring, seven of them, with the inner world, again, and as usual, at your center. The Four Corners would make you dangerous faster. You’d be able to specialize techniques immediately instead of wait until your nodes are mostly complete, but the halo makes ascension easier. If you ever make it there.”
Yi Cao just sat, trying to absorb the implied promise. “Wouldn’t the Four Corners make me useful, sooner though?” he asked slowly.
Zihan dialed something out of his wallet and tossed a narrow booklet to him. “Here.” He said.
Yi Cao caught it and read the cover. The Ancient Path to the Pillars of Creation.
“The Pillars is made for fast cultivation.” Zihan said. “High density, high purity Ki with thick high capacity channels.”
Yi Cao just stared at it.
“The beauty of the Yellow cultivation manuals, and the reason for their popularity, is that you can work with pretty much any aspect or mix of aspects without worrying about getting tainted, since you aren’t using enough to corrupt your channels with the natural law. Try doing that with a cultivation manual like this one or one that didn’t include venting and purifying as you go, and you’d find your channels cutting their own patterns or collapsing on you as the laws you used to cut them went rampant. Fast track to becoming an elemental. Not a fun experience, as I understand.” Zihan grew pensive for a moment. “Watched it once.” He said. “A lot of screaming.”
Yi Cao opened the sheaf of bound paper to find detailed instructions on Ki direction written out alongside diagrams that made the Ancestral Gardens scripture look like an exercise in overcomplication. He could never have used it at the Hidden Heart Sect. Couldn’t, now.
“This needs a lot of Ki.” He said, looking up at Zihan. “Ki, I don’t have access too.”
Zihan shook off his reverie and grinned. He tossed him the sheet he’d been doodling on while they talked. On it, beside the sketch of Yi Cao’s progress, was a diagram of a half a dozen loops that included, at their center, the script carved into his source.
Ki suddenly filled the room and Yi Cao looked up to find Zihan holding the Sapphire source used in the ambush on Elleppu station. He stared, until he noticed the smoke rising from it as Zihan ran a finger along the back.
“What are you doing?” Yi Cao asked.
Zihan tossed the source to Yi Cao as the source began to glow with the same spectral light as the whirlpool cultivator’s had used in battle. The medallion began to spontaneously drip with condensation while Yi Cao felt a pull as it landed in his palm.
“Sometimes you don’t need a key to break a lock.” Zihan told him, “If you know at last a part of the key script, anyways.” He nodded to the sapphire in Yi Cao’s hand. “That’s a dirty source.” He said. “Don’t try cutting the Pillars of Creation with that. Too many aspects makes it hard to control, but, cut that scripture,” he nodded to the diagram in Yi Cao’s lap, “into the palm of your hand, and you’ll have all the single aspect Ki you need to start progressing on your cultivation.”
Yi Cao just stared at the sapphire remembering the way Muchen’s teeth had reflected blue in the light drawn from the thing in his hands.
Zihan snapped his finger to get Yi Cao’s attention and Yi Cao’s head snapped up to look at him.
“Did you hear what I said?” The Young Master stuck a smoker into his mouth, unlit, and waved to the pointed at the paper in Yi Cao’s lap. “That. In your hand.” He said. “Then cultivate. Got that?”
Yi Cao nodded, then looked at the sapphire in his hand again. He swallowed. Water dripped from the source onto the parchment in his lap and he pulled it out of the way before it could cause the ink to run. He felt a slight breeze whirling around the source, as though the air itself were drawn into the hint of shadow deep in the heart of the gem.
“If I don’t have you working on anything else, I want you cultivating.” Zihan said as he lit his fume stick with a finger. “Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“I can make it an order if you need.” Zihan told him.
Yi Cao scowled and looked up at him. “You don’t have to order me to cultivate.” He told him.
Zihan just smiled and puffed at his smoker, filling the little room with acrid smoke. “Then I’ll leave you to it.” He said. He grinned. “I have girls to evaluate and to entertain, after all. TC will be back at some point. I’ll pull you out of here around then.” He rolled off the bed and made his way towards the door. He stopped with one hand on the knob.
“One more thing.” He said, and there was ice in his voice again.
Yi Cao looked to him and the Young Master glanced back over his shoulder. “Never question my decisions about who to include in our adventures. Do I make myself clear?”
Yi Cao didn’t reply. Just looked at him.
“Make a habit of it and I will make it an order on our oath.” Zihan went on, turning back to the door. “You know part of the plan, not the whole. Nowhere near the whole. I don’t need you questioning my decisions every step of the way.” He opened the door. “Your role is to get stronger and to do as you’re told. Nothing else.” He took a hit and let the smoke curl around him as he stood in the doorway. “Any questions?” He asked.
Yi Cao looked down at the scripture in his hand and the source still dripping condensation amidst the eddying air.
“I don’t want to get stuck here.” He said quietly. “If we run out of money.” He looked up at Zihan who remained a shadow in the doorway.
“Then you’d better focus on your cultivation.” Zihan replied.
Yi Cao nodded. “I will.”
“Good.” Zihan nodded. “I’ll be back when I need you.”
Smoke spun in the empty room after he was gone. Vents in the ceiling hissed, but the air spun until the smoke moved around the source like the whirlpool it must once have been taken from, with Yi Cao caught at its center, new scripture still in his lap. The pistol at Yi Cao’s hip began to hum as green lines flickered in the smoke and the absurdly happy face began to take form on one wall.
“If you are not busy, this is an excellent time to practice.” The pistol told him.
“Go away Bo bo.” Yi Cao snapped.
The happy face moped then disappeared.
Yi Cao looked up at the door and stared at it for a moment. He glanced back to the scripture set it and the whirlpool source aside and shifted across the floor until he could reach into his pack and pull out the Treatise on Soul Oaths.
He glanced at the door one more time before he settled in his former position and peeled the book open to read.