Sen stood motionless inside the shadow he’d wrapped around himself and watched as Wu Meng Yao conducted a class. Part of him hated to admit it, but he was pretty sure she was a better teacher. It wasn’t a matter of knowledge. He was, by all meaningful measures, the better swordsman. He understood the weapon better. He knew more about using it. But it was becoming clear that he wasn’t necessarily better at showing someone else how to use it. For direct instruction, she simply had a quality that he lacked. He viewed teaching students as largely a matter of correcting flaws in their stance and imparting additional forms. It was a decidedly one-sided relationship where he provided information, and it was on them to incorporate it.
It took him a while to figure it out because she never discussed it. He wasn’t even sure if she thought about it. The primary difference between himself and Wu Meng Yao as teachers was that she wanted her students to improve. It was important to her. More than that, she wanted them to improve in some vague, holistic way that Sen struggled to understand. Almost as if she believed that if she believed enough in them, they would become better. It baffled him, even if he could see how it changed the way the students reacted to her. His students worked hard. They worked very hard, in no small part because he wouldn’t accept anything less. Wu Meng Yao’s students would work themselves to death if she asked them to. Of course, she never would, and he suspected they all knew that too.
He wasn’t heartless when it came to his students. Sen didn’t want them to fail, but it wasn’t going to influence his self-perception much if some of them did. Not every student was destined for greatness. Some deficits could be overcome through sheer tenacity and hard work. He knew that much from personal experience. He also knew that he’d been lucky in many regards. He’d had deficits. Looking back, he could see them all too clearly, but they had been the kinds of deficits that hard work could overcome. If his body had been slightly different, his ability to intuit certain kinds of tactical realities a little less acute, his mind a little duller, he would have been one of those failures. At a certain point, a lack of talent, insight, and a hundred other things could and would bring someone’s journey toward mastery to an irrevocable end. It was harsh, but it was also a fact.
Armed with that fact, Sen didn’t tie himself emotionally to the success and failure of individual students. Particularly the cultivators he dealt with as students. He was looking to raise the overall competence of a large number of people to maximize the survival chances of the small towns and villages that didn’t have the questionable good fortune to be located right outside of a sect. Much as cultivators faced the heavens alone, those towns and villages would face the spirit beasts alone. They needed help and training they simply weren’t going to get anywhere else. Cultivators, even wandering cultivators, had a lot of options. If they didn’t like what they got from him, well, they could seek their training elsewhere. It seemed that Wu Meng Yao did not share that view, and he couldn’t say that he was surprised. She was from a sect and steeped in sect thinking. She probably saw helping all those mortals as the distant, secondary concern of this place, and helping cultivators as the real work to be done. She poured herself into the task.
A tiny little piece of Sen envied that capacity in her, but he recognized that he couldn’t afford to think or act that way. It would become a distraction that took the academy off of the path he’d set for it. He had to think in terms of the big picture and broader goals so that other people could do things like worry about the progress of individual students. None of which made it any easier for Sen to accept that Wu Meng Yao was just better at this than he was. That was pride talking poison into his ear. He knew it. He just wished knowing that made it easier to ignore. He’d just have to settle for not acting on it. Plus, even if he couldn’t act that way, he could offer some support. As the class was nearing its end, Sen stepped out of the shadow he’d been…
Was I just lurking? Damn it, thought Sen. I was lurking. He took solace in the fact that he’d also been hiding, so at least no one would know he’d been acting like Fu Ruolan. The class ground to an immediate halt when he stopped hiding. Everyone stared at him until Wu Meng Yao offered a bow. The dozen or so foundation formation cultivators in the class hastily followed her lead. Sen inclined his head to them and then waved a hand.
“Continue,” he said.
Wu Meng Yao gave the class a withering look and clapped her hands to draw their attention.
“You heard the man. Continue.”
Sen could tell his mere presence made them all nervous, particularly as he circled around them like a great wolf picking the weakest deer in the herd. He zeroed in on the man with dark red hair he’d been forced to chastise when he’d first met Sua Xing Xing. He made sure to keep a cool, impassive expression on his face as he walked over to the man. Learning from past failures, he had at least made a point to find out the man’s name. Soon Zi Rui tried and failed to maintain his composure as Sen cast a critical eye over him. Without saying a word, Sen reached out with his foot and nudged the cringing cultivator’s foot into the proper position. Then, he adjusted the man’s grip on his jian.
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“You’ll gain a fraction of a second on your strikes if you hold it this way,” said Sen.
Soon Zi Rui gave a jerky nod of his head. Moving on, Sen took a moment with each student to offer some little nugget of wisdom or correction. He saved the tiny, childlike woman, Mo Kai-Ming, for last. She beamed up at him like he was her favorite brother. He offered her a gentle smile and some minor corrections.
“See me after you finish. I have something for you,” he told her.
He said it casually like it was routine for him to stop by and tell one of the students to see him. He’d done it on purpose. He saw the way the other cultivators treated her, the dismissal in their eyes, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. Simply by inviting her to speak with him, her position in the social order of the class had just been adjusted from the bottom to somewhere above the top. She offered him a surprised nod, and he retreated to stand behind and to the side of Wu Meng Yao. He’d violated the natural balance of things enough for one day. Wu Meng Yao closed out the class with a firm admonition to continue practicing hard before she turned and bowed to him again.
“And we should all thank the founder for taking the time to visit with us today and impart his wisdom,” she said.
The class all bowed again, and Sen did what Falling Leaf had told him to do. He lived with it. He inclined his head to them again.
“I’m impressed. You should all thank your teacher for the very excellent instruction she has been providing to you.”
Everyone in the class straightened at the words and bowed to Wu Meng Yao.
As one, they shouted, “Thank you, Teacher!”
Wu Meng Yao actually blushed and seemed at a loss for what to say, so Sen stepped up next to her.
“You are dismissed,” he announced.
Most of the cultivators left, although he could see all of them shooting curious looks at Mo Kai-Ming. He also saw a few jealous looks sent her way as well. He wondered if he hadn’t done her as much of a favor as he’d thought. Well, it’s too late to take it back, he thought. The tiny woman came over looking a little uncertain about what to expect. He smiled at her.
“May I see your blade?” he asked her.
“Of course,” she said, hastily untying the weapon from her waist and handing it to him.
He took it from her and unsheathed it. It was a blade of decent quality for someone in the qi-gathering stage, but it would fall short in foundation formation. That wasn’t the only problem with it. She was making do, but the weapon was simply too long for her. It had been obvious as the class worked through their forms. He sighed and shook his head.
“This won’t do,” he said. “It won’t do at all.”
He sheathed the jian and handed it to Wu Meng Yao, who was giving him the same look of mixed concern and confusion as Mo Kai-Ming. After a brief search through his storage rings, he summoned a jian he’d bought for this specific purpose and promptly forgotten about for months.
“I believe that this blade will suit you better,” he said and offered her the sword. “Consider a minor inclusion in your recompense.”
Her eyes wide, Mo Kai-Ming reached out and took the sword. It was of a substantially better quality than the one she’d been using. Just as importantly, it was shorter. While that loss in length would come at a small cost in range, it would also come with a substantial improvement in control. He might find out he was wrong in the long run, but he considered an improvement in control to be far more valuable than a small gain in range. After all, cultivators could maintain range with speed and techniques. There was no substitute for control. Unsheathing the blade, the tiny woman’s eyes went wide. She immediately put it back into the scabbard and tried to return it.
“This is too expensive. It’s too much. I’ll be fine with the sword I have.”
Sen looked to Wu Meng Yao. “You’re her teacher. You should explain it.”
She shot him a look that was equal parts grateful and disapproving. It was as if she was happy he’d left the explanation to her, but also unhappy that he’d foisted the responsibility onto her. He gave her a knowing smile which prompted a brief scowl in his direction.
“This blade,” said Wu Meng Yao, lifting the tiny woman’s old sword, “will swiftly fail you in foundation formation. It simply isn’t made to withstand the force and pressure of the kinds of fights that you’ll likely find yourself in. That blade will serve you for some time to come.”
“And,” added Sen with a thoughtful look, “you would shame me by refusing to accept this attempt to compensate you.”
Horror blossomed on Mo Kai-Ming’s face. Her eyes darted from Sen to the sword she was still trying to shove back into his hands. She immediately yanked the sword back and hugged it to her chest.
“I will, naturally, of course, accept this fine weapon,” she stammered.
“My gratitude,” said Sen.
When it became obvious that the tiny woman didn’t know what to do next, Wu Meng Yao gently escorted her to the door, returning the old jian. As soon as they were alone, Wu Meng Yao whirled toward Sen.
“You could have told me you were going to do that.”
“I wanted to see how you handle things when you don’t think you’re being observed. I am leaving you in charge here, after all.”
“And?” asked Wu Meng Yao, doing a good but not perfect job of hiding her nervousness.
“I don’t know how much teaching they let you do back at the Soaring Skies Sect, but you’re good at this,” said Sen, stowing his wounded pride. “You should do more of it when you leave here if you get the chance. As for me, I’m satisfied that I’m leaving things in good hands.”
“Oh,” said Wu Meng Yao like she’d been preparing for a reprimand that never came. “Thank you.”