It was nighttime when Huabe awoke. Everything was silent, almost eerily so.
She looked forwards, expecting to see her room, but was disappointed. This was not her house. The walls looked different. Instead of shelves of books, there were tapestries of robed figures dimly lit by candlelight.
“Phew.” She was alright. Her father was here. Perhaps she was in some sort of hospital? She must have passed out from pure disgust. Who knew there could be a taste so strong? But that's a fantasy world for you. Full of unbelievable things.
“Hello.”
“What the fuck!?” Huabe lunged out of bed, and Wenku was startled awake due to her shout. Standing behind her bed was a man dressed in a luxurious robe of many different hues of blue. His hair was a bluish grey, and he had wrinkles in the corners of his eyes.
“Who are you?! How did you get in this room?!” Huabe quickly threw her questions out as she crouched down into a fighting position, and then flopped onto the ground.
“Damn it.” She was still a child. She didn't have the muscles to take a proper stance, instead just falling over.
“Huabe! That’s no way to talk to our fringe minister! I’m so sorry, Daoist still pond, my daughter is just confused is all.” Wenku had risen from his seat, clasped his hands together, and made a bowing motion towards this ‘Daoist still pond’ whatever the fuck that was.
“Oh please, please, it's no problem. And how many times have I told you, you can just call me minister Vin. After all, my cultivator days are behind me. I’m a minister first nowadays.”
This Vin fellow was a cultivator? He was also the minister?! “Oh, I’m sorry about that minister Vin. I thought you might have been a thief.”
“Haha! Me? Do I look like I need money?” The minister spread his arms, gesturing at his robe.
“Uhhh.” Huabe didn't know how to answer that.
The minister’s face took on an incredulous expression. “You know this is crystal worm silk, right?”
“What’s a crystal worm?” She had never heard of such a thing before. Was the worm made of crystals? Or perhaps just had crystals sticking out of a worm body? And did he mean silk worms or just regular worms? Do normal worms in this world make silk?
The minister looked at Wenku. “What have you been teaching her?”
Her father looked up from the bow. “Well, she is not even two years old yet Daois– minister Vin.”
“Not even two yet? And she has already cleared a meridian? Wow. That is pretty close to the world record.” Minister Vin stroked his long, eastern dragon-looking moustache.
“Well, it’s what caused you to pass out.” The minister nodded to himself.
“What?! Why?” She needed to know. She did not want that disgusting stuff in her mouth ever again! She would do everything in her power to prevent it from happening to her once more.
“Whoah, ok. Slow down there. Perhaps we should have a little chat sometime. But that time is not now. Bye!” With those final words, minister Vin tapped his right foot twice on the ground. He then did something fast with his hands and muttered unintelligible words under his breath. A slight blue glow surrounded his feet, and then he slid out of the room. Fast. Really fast! Faster than the fastest runner on earth kind of fast!
“Woah! Father, did you see that?” She pointed at the doorway that the minister had just disappeared through.
“Yes, dear. The minister does like to be at places on time, and he’s a busy man. For now, let's just head home. He confirmed that there was nothing wrong with you and that everything was fine.”
“Fine? I passed out from the mere taste of that black stuff. How is that normal?”
Wenku waved his hands. “It’s cultivator stuff. He won't tell me. But he will tell you. That’s why I am bringing you to work with me tomorrow.”
Huabe’s face fell. But, at least she would know soon. It was just very annoying that she had to wait.
“Fiine.” With those words, she grabbed her father's hand and they began the walk back to the house. They first had to get out of this ornate building, which her father described as a minster outpost. Apparently, this is where he went to go and work on stuff. The walls had many tapestries and statues, just a bunch of junk, really. She had never really understood art, and it seemed that that held true in this world as well.
Soon they were out the door and walking down the steps down to the cobbled road below. As they walked the streets, Huabe noticed how odd it really looked outside. First of all, there were very tall metal chimney pipes alongside the path on either side that held lit candles within them. And between these towers of metal, about three meters of the way up, there was an arch of metal that connected the two together overhead. And this pattern repeated itself all along the path.
Huabe tugged on her father's sleeve. “Father, why are those chimneys so tall?”
She pointed and Wenku followed her finger with his eyes. “Well, those are for winter of course.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“What are you talking about Huabe? The winter year is not yet upon us, we are still in the fall year. Haven't you noticed the leaves changing?”
“Of course.” That colour-changing tree had tricked her!
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing. But why would we need those poles for winter?”
Wenku smiled. “The first winter is always fun. I don't want to spoil anything, so you’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Ugh, nobody is answering my questions!”
“Oh, fine then. I’ll give you a hint. Think about why the street is sunk into the ground and at such an angle.”
And all of these observations did not take her any closer to an explanation. Instead, she just huffed and continued on her way home.
When she arrived, she found all of her brothers sleeping in the hallway near the front door. Well, nearly all of them. Yantye was surprisingly awake for once.
As soon as she stepped inside, Yantye looked up at her from the floor and then picked her up in a great big bear hug. Because despite being only a couple of days older than her, he was somehow a whole head taller.
“Are you ok?”
Huabe let loose a small giggle. “Of course!” She hugged her brother back.
“What are you all doing in the hallway? You should be asleep in your beds!” Wenku’s raised voice awakened the two sleeping on the floor.
Tiaosu jumped to his feet. “Bay! Your back!”
“Thank goodness you’re alright.” Duanso rose to his feet just a tad slower.
“Alright! Off to bed with you all! Chop, chop!”
…
Huabe was sitting on a chair in an ornate office, dressed in pink robes.
… Pink. Pink!
She was not a person who wore pink. In fact, you could even say she despised the colour. It was just so bleugh! Red? Now that was a colour she could get behind. Even purple was pretty nice. Black was also a good choice.
But pink?
Huabe sighed. Unfortunately, she had no say in the matter. Her father wanted her to look nice and apparently only had a pair of pink robes in her size.
But looking back into the hall where three other pink backs were slowly walking away brought a smile to her face. She had not come alone. After all, she had three annoying brothers who had complained that it wasn't fair that she was allowed to go when they were to be left at home.
And so, quadruple pinkness was achieved. Her brothers were obviously not pleased with the limited wardrobe, same as her, but they had sucked it up.
But this world's culture could not change her sense of taste for colour, and she predicted it never would. The colour pink could go into a sewer and silently die for all she cared.
A woman wearing similar clothing to Wenku, the scholarly robes with ink stains, walked into the room.
“Minister Vin is ready to see you now.”
Huabe nodded and hopped down from the chair she was sitting on. She made her way to the door as the woman opened it for her and went inside.
Minister Vin was sitting behind a truly ridiculously sized desk. The desk was long enough to pass for one of those very awkward dinner tables where you couldn't hear the person on the other end. But, she couldn't say that the size of the desk was too ridiculous because every inch of the desk was filled with paper. Stacks of paper even.
And sitting on the other side was Minister Vin, brush in hand. And behind the Minister floated balls of liquid ink that would descend onto the pages and form words.
“Woah.”
Minister Vin looked up from his work. “Ah, Huabe, you have arrived. Finally! I need a break from this.” With a clap of his hands, the floating balls of ink returned to a large container marked ‘Water Ink’.
“How did you do that?!”
“Oh, just a basic spell. Not anything too amazing.” His face took on a smugness similar to the look on a fox's face after it trips a person into a pile of shit.
“Now, let me explain a little bit. A meridian, what do you think it is?” He questioned Huabe.
“Umm. A tunnel?” She had thought about what a meridian could be last night, and she thought that it might have something to do with the wormhole. It was ultimately just a guess, but she thought she was probably right.
“Basically, yeah. You see, a meridian is a pathway for Qi. But from birth, a meridian will be clogged. And it is clogged with the absolute nastiest smelling substance I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. I can not even imagine what it would taste like. Let’s just say, vomiting was probably the right call to get that stuff out of you as fast as possible.”
“Wai-” She was about to complain that there had to be a better way than vomiting. But, thinking back to the taste of that stuff… Yeah, perhaps vomit was for the best. Getting water would have taken too much time. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Don't feel too down about it. Many a cultivator has been heavily affected by that foul substance. It doesn't have a common name, but most of us cultivators call it the foul bane. Nasty.” The Minister took out a match and lit the incense stick on his window sill. Soon enough, the smell of the sea wafted around the room. Not a fake smell like in a scented candle, but like the real ocean. Fish and all.
“Moving on! Since you have cleared a meridian, that obviously means that you have formed a link. Now, you say that the foul bane appeared on your tongue, correct?”
“Yes.” A nasty taste filled her mouth.
“Ok. Ok. Ok. Well, this is certainly uncommon. It seems that you are not a Spiritual cultivator or a Martial cultivator. You are a Domain cultivator.”
“Domain? I thought there were only two types of cultivators?” She was a little confused. The books had never mentioned Domain cultivators.
“Yes. Domain cultivation is often misrepresented as spiritual cultivation, but it is very different. For one, Domain cultivation has many more meridians to open, a common example of one is the tongue meridian, which you had the displeasure of opening first, unprepared for the future taste. Spiritual only has five meridians, arms, legs, and navel, right where the Dantian sits. Suffice it to say, the cultivation process is much different from one to the other. Now, could you tell me a little bit about your linked Dominion?”
Huabe was still processing all this information, and the sudden question made no sense. “What's a Dominion? Does it have to do with the Domain cultivation?”
Minister Vin just patiently answered her questions. “A Dominion is what resides in you Sanjian, that space along your spine. It is similar in nature to a spirit, which resides in the Dantian, and the beast, which resides in the mind expanse.”
So, if she was hearing this all correctly, there were three cultivation paths. Martial, Spiritual, and Domain. Martial required a person to cultivate a beast egg inside the mind expanse. Spiritual required a spirit in the dantian to be cultivated. And Domain cultivation required a Dominion in the Sanjian.