Xu Long sat across from his mother in contemplative silence, he had been waiting to hear this information from his mother for most of life, and yet now that he had, he had to admit that she was right not to tell him earlier, this was a lot to take in. His mother was being hunted by one of the most powerful clans in the realm and his father was in the Immortal Realm and didn’t know that he even existed, he would have to pass through a Heavenly Tribulation just to meet the man. As he thought over everything he had just heard a few questions sprang to mind.
“You can’t leave the valley can you?”
“I possibly could, I have since improved my more mobile divination blocking formation substantially, but it is not worth the risk of testing it until after I reach Dao Seeking. Right now they have no clue about the whereabouts or even existence of the valley, my Star Gathering Formation has spread itself throughout a large portion of the Endless Forest, should they be given cause to take a detailed look at the forest, no matter how well hidden it is, they are the cultivators who are best suited to uncovering it, and with it the valley. Not to mention the danger it would put you in by drawing their attention anywhere near the Academies.”
“Speaking of drawing their attention to me, are my eyes going to be a problem?”
His mother sighed at that question. “Yes, they most likely will be. We have a couple of options available to us, neither is perfect.
“First, we hide the color of your eyes with a magical trinket, this has a very obvious benefit and it is what we will be doing with Xiao Xing to avoid anyone coveting such a unique variant spirit fox, however it has quite a large flaw when applied to you. Such trinkets will trick most people, but they are far from foolproof, especially when you put them up against cultivators in the upper realms. Now, someone who has hidden the eyes, or really any part of a spirit beast, has a very obvious and somewhat common motivation, the exact same one we do, namely they have a rare variant and don’t want to attract attention to it, very few people who could see through it enough to notice what was happening would even blink twice. A person using such a trinket however, that is a mystery, and there are more likely than not going to be people who can see through such trinkets who would be drawn to solving said mystery, even if just for the fun of it. So by going this route we are hiding your affinity from most people and yet advertising to others that you have something to hide, and the ones we are advertising to are, by virtue of their cultivation alone, the most difficult to deal with.
“The second option is much more simple, we do nothing. Wu Zhong creates a backstory about plucking you from the mortal lands and you just happen to have a very rare affinity. With this option the chances of anyone connecting you to me are minute given the unlikeliness of your birth and the fact that you take after your father far more than you do me, but it is not an impossibility and regardless you will have to deal with advances from the Zhao trying to rope you in via marriage, or other means, when they find out about you.”
After Xu Long had heard both of the options he thought “neither is perfect” was somewhat of an understatement, they were both pretty awful. The first would mean that he had to deal with curious cultivators who were in the upper reaches of the cultivation realms snooping around him and trying to discover his secret, and if they did discover it, they would piece together rather easily that he was trying to avoid the attention of the Zhao clan. The second was almost worse, the thought of having to pretend that he didn’t have a problem with the Zhao clan and entertain and delay their attempts to shackle him to the clan as some kind of breeding stud after he had just listened to his mother’s story felt borderline impossible.
As he was wracking his brain trying to decide which option he hated least he looked down at his wrist and a thought occurred to him that he initially dismissed as crazy, but he kept looking back, thinking about it. Was it really that crazy? It solved his eye color problem rather handily and also forced such a massive burden on him that it might just spur his swordsmanship to new heights. The more he thought about that aspect of it, the more he thought he may still have gone down that path even if there wasn’t a problem associated with his eye color.
Finally after a few minutes of deliberation he looked up at his mother, his mind made up. “I think I will go with the third option.”
“The third option?” She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering where this was going.
Instead of answering her question he started untying the blindfold from his wrist and putting it on.
When his mother saw what he was doing, she couldn’t help raising her voice in abject refusal. “Absolutely not Long’er!”
He stopped putting it on but continued holding it up near his face as he looked over the piece of cloth directly at his mother. “It’s alright Mother. I know that you may see this as your history placing a large burden on your son, but I want you to understand, this discussion of ours may have given me the idea, but the more I thought about it just now, the more I realized that the problem of my eye color being solved by this course of action is incidental and if the problem didn’t exist at all I would still be tempted to walk down this path.”
She just looked at him in stunned silence, then she took a deep breath and collected herself before calmly saying. “Do you understand what you are talking about doing Long’er, you can’t just brush this off calling it a ‘large burden’. You are talking about crippling yourself and then walking into a martial Academy and pitting yourself against some of the best young cultivators in the realm, not to mention the spirit beasts of the forest. This is no small thing you are talking about.”
With a guilty smile he replied. “You’re right Mother, I was softening the language, but you have got something backwards there. I have spent the better part of the last 6 years blindfolded, I know the immensity of the burden it is going to place on me to forgo the reprieve from the blindfold in between training sessions that I have grown so accustomed to. That being said, ‘pitting yourself against some of the best young cultivators in the realm’ whilst blinded is the benefit of this course of action, I seek to forge my swordsmanship in the fires of monumental challenge.”
As she looked at her son deeply and saw that there was no talking him out of this course of action, she sighed, stood up and moved towards her son around the table. He was looking back at her wondering where this was going, still holding the blindfold in his two hands. When she was directly in front of him she held out her hand.
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“Alright Long’er, I can see that there is no talking you out of this madness and that you want to start training right away to get used to living without sight, but you can wait a day to start, you are going to need a better blindfold.”
Xu Long looked at his mother a little confused about why she was being insistent about this of all things, but he had to admit that it was true he could wait another day, so he reluctantly handed over his trusty blindfold that had been with him for 6 years now. As soon as she had the blindfold from him, she walked out of the grove, not speaking another word. Xu Long watched his mother go, knowing that she was upset about his decision, but unwilling to turn away from this path he had chosen. Ever since he had started training blindfolded with Old Wu all those years ago he knew that he had to continue down this path, no matter the toll it took on him. Now though it was solving a rather serious problem on top of helping him advance his swordsmanship, it was like fate was pushing him in this direction and he was happy to oblige, all to chase that feeling, when the world melted away and he and his sword were one.
Xu Long decided to spend his day with Xu Xing since he had been hyper focused on cultivation the past couple of months and did not have a lot of time for her. First though he had to wait for her to wake up after her night classes with his mother. So naturally he cultivated…
The next day rolled around rather quickly, filled as it was by cultivation and chasing a seemingly impossible to catch spirit fox throughout the valley. Xu Long sheathed his sword when he felt his mother arrive, stopping his cultivation session early as he was excited to get started on this next challenge. When he saw her sitting at his table he could tell with a look that she was still upset, it seemed a day to calm down had not been the panacea he hoped it would be. As he sat across from her, he prepared his arguments in his head, ready for another disagreement.
Instead he saw her wave her hand over the table between them and materialize a pristine white length of cloth. She laid it out flat over the table and Xu Long could tell that it was quite a bit longer than his previous one and that the cloth hanging from the back would be more than he was used to.
His mother noticed him looking at it and could tell he was slightly confused about the new dimensions. “It was necessary to elongate it compared to the previous one, Long’er.” She paused as she tapped a point in the center of length of the cloth, as she did a set of incredibly dense and complex looking runes and lines appeared, glowing in a silver light on the cloth. “Otherwise I couldn’t fit all of this on there.” She smiled as she leaned back and watched her son examine her work.
“Do you see that small blank circle at the nexus point of the formation?”
Xu Long found it quickly as he looked where his mother told him to. He nodded.
“Place a drop of your blood infused with your qi there.”
Xu Long slightly unsheathed his sword, just enough to expose the blade edge, before he gently touched the tip of his finger to it. He concentrated a small portion of his qi into his finger tip as he let a drop of blood fall from his freshly cut finger into the designated area, he watched intently, curious as to what the result would be. He was slightly surprised when the blood hit the cloth and almost instantly the silver light of the formation briefly intensified and then winked out of existence, taking the blood drop with it.
“You will never see that formation again, but more importantly, neither will anyone else. Put it on Long’er.”
Very curious as to what all this was about, Xu Long complied in a rather rapid fashion, as he placed the new blindfold over his eyes he was quite surprised at how well it sat on his face, despite the absolute darkness he could hardly tell that he was wearing it all.
“Run a tiny amount of your qi through the blindfold.”
As Xu Long did so he was astonished when the world around him that had been blacked out by the blindfold appeared before him. He craned his neck around looking at his surroundings through the blindfold over his eyes, until he landed on his mother sitting across from him smiling widely.
“This is astonishing, Mother.”
“You should stop using it for now Long’er, the reason that it can be activated by a tiny amount of your qi, which by the way can be a much smaller amount than you just used but such control will require practice on your part, is because it is powered by the stars. I created this blindfold because I could tell that you would not be dissuaded from this course of action and I believed both your motivations, and that you would have most likely done something similar had your stellar affinity not been a point of potential problems.
“However, the only reason you wouldn’t be able to take a break from being blindfolded every once in a while was indeed because I am your mother and you have inherited my history with my former clan, thus I created this blindfold. With this you will be able to take a break from the darkness when you feel the need and no one will be the wiser, and I do mean no one, once you have mastered your qi a little more you will be able to utilize this feature right in front of a Dao Seeking expert, and as long as your body language doesn’t give away that you can see, no one will know.
“But as previously mentioned it is powered by the stars, the effect is not overly greedy, however it will likely not last more than half an hour during the day before you will need to recharge it under the stars. That being said, should you wish it, you could sit under the stars and see the world around you for the entire night with no problems at all.
“I should also inform you that the binding process you just completed means that no qi but yours can be used to activate this effect, in the unlikely event that someone where to have access to this blindfold other than you, it would simply appear to be a relatively high quality blindfold well inscribed to prevent and repair damage and self clean, just like your robes.”
Xu Long untied the blindfold and removed it from his eyes, looking down at it for a moment before looking up at his mother. “Thank you Mother, This means a lot. I know that you will probably dismiss this, but you don’t have to feel guilty about any effect your history with the Zhao clan has had or will have on me, as far as I am concerned, we are in this together.”
She had to smile at that, before taking a moment. “I appreciate the thought Long’er, but you are right, I am going to dismiss most of that. I do feel guilty about how my history with the Zhao clan has basically dictated the course of your entire life. I will never forgive them for forcing your father back to the Immortal Realm and effectively trapping me, and by extension you, in this valley for your entire childhood. I am going to deal with them myself though, when you leave this valley your task will be very simple, I want you to live your life as if you had never heard my story, follow your heart down whatever path you deem best, but you leave the Zhao to me.
“Understood?”
Staring into his mother’s eyes, Xu Long saw how serious she was, he tapped the side of his index finger against his mouth in mock thoughtfulness. “I tell you what, I will make you a deal. I will leave the Zhao to you, and you will forgive yourself and shed that guilt about the effect that your former clan had on my life. I may have had a sheltered childhood, but I think you did just fine Mother.
“So do we have a deal?”
His mother just stared at him, making for quite the uncomfortable silence, before her neutral face cracked and she let out a laugh and wiped away a bit of moisture from her eyes.
“Alright Long’er, you have yourself a deal.”