Unintended Cultivator

Bahn Huizhong considered himself a worldly man. True, he had been a member of the Vermillion Blade Sect for most of his life, but he’d always held a dim view of those cultivators who cloistered themselves away and avoided any task that took them beyond the walls of the sect. He didn’t understand those people. The world was vast and with that vastness came opportunity if one was swift and wise enough to seize it. Unlike the majority that he entered the sect with in his youth so very long ago, he had taken every opportunity to leave the sect. He had taken on missions no one wanted to places he’d never heard of just to see what was there.

Usually, it was a village with some minor spirit beast that was destroying crops or eating livestock. Not much of a challenge for him but the villagers were always grateful, and he’d never been one to turn down a warm meal. He had turned down most of the warm beds, though. He enjoyed those activities as much as anyone else, but looking like a young man and being a young man were very different things. He had, however, availed himself of some willing widows along the way. He felt that they were experienced enough to know what they wanted, which meant he wouldn’t be taking advantage of them. Every so often, though, he’d find himself doing something exciting. He smiled as he thought of that hotheaded youth who had more courage than talent, to say nothing of wisdom. That young man had battled demonic cultivators, hunted spirit beasts far too powerful for him, fought duels of honor, and generally been lucky to survive.

With that excitement came the opportunities. A natural treasure he never would have found if he hadn’t been tracking some spirit beast. A burst of insight in the midst of a pitched battle. A moment of enlightenment while looking at some vista that no one else had ever seen because it was so far into the wilds that only he dared go there. The truth was that he’d been more of a wandering cultivator than a member of the sect for a long time. He’d be gone for months or years at a time, sometimes on tasks for the sect and sometimes pursuing some opportunity he’d stumbled across. It had been lonely at times but that was as much a part of cultivation as cycling patterns. If you couldn’t learn to cope with loneliness, you had no business trying to reach the pinnacle.

In the early decades, he’d return to find that he’d once more outpaced his old comrades. As decades turned to centuries, he’d return to discover that he’d outlived more old friends who had gotten stuck at a bottleneck. He’d climbed the ranks of the sect almost by accident. He found that the low-level missions he’d once taken and loved were replaced with missions to visit other sects or cities because he’d grown too powerful for anything else. That had been a blow. He started to take on disciples as much to relieve the boredom as anything else, and time had started to slip through his fingers. That old drive, that need to progress, had dwindled until only a tiny spark remained, hidden so far down inside him that even he hadn’t known it was there.

He had gotten old, or so he believed, and expected to die within a handful of centuries. It was with that in mind that he took on Li Yi Nuo as what he expected to be his last student. She was an odd girl, so full of talent and an equal amount of self-doubt. She was bright and cheerful one minute, melancholy the next. She was so different from him but perhaps someone he could help. He didn’t believe anyone else in the sect would have the patience to guide her. She was too mercurial to be obedient the way most masters wanted. So, he’d taken her under his wing. He’d been a poor protector to her, though.

That bitch, Elder Jeong, had set her sights on Li Yi Nuo, and he’d been too old, too weak, to stand against her. Or so he thought. He’d been surprised to discover that he was wrong. He barely remembered executing the woman after she tried to send Li Yi Nuo off on a mission with no resources and no expectation of success or survival. He just remembered that spark, that tiny little spark buried so deep down inside of him, bursting to life, filling him with the same fire and drive that made him so reckless in his youth and so potent in the long centuries after. He’d felt long-dormant power swell inside of him. It was only when he’d held that bitch’s severed head in his hand and cowed every other elder in the sect that he realized he might not be quite finished with his journey yet.

Then Li Yi Nuo had returned from her mission with almost unbelievable tales of a madman who summoned tribulation lightning, brought nine tail foxes to heel, and battled devils to a standstill. A man who thought nothing of building formations that stretched for miles and gave away healing potions of such value that it beggared the imagination. He’d scarcely been able to credit the tales, save for the sure knowledge that the girl wouldn’t lie to him and the evidence of his own eyes. He had held those potions in his hand. It had been like holding a miracle. When she had shown him the letter of introduction to Kho Jaw-Long, he had again been inclined to disbelieve, but was it any more unbelievable than anything else she had said?

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He had seen Kho Jaw-Long once, most of a millennia ago. It had been equal parts inspirational and terrifying to see the nascent soul cultivator turn a sect into a graveyard. That kind of power was what every cultivator aspired to and so few achieved. If Li Yi Nuo could study with that man, however briefly, it could prove the difference between her reaching nascent soul and her being stuck at core formation. So, he had sent her off in search of her own opportunities. He had done some investigation into this Lu Sen while she was away. He’d been curious to meet the man, but as one barely credible tale after the next had poured in that curiosity had grown and grown. He was certain that most of those tales had to be made up or at least exaggerated, but if even a fraction of them were true, well, who wouldn’t want to meet a man like that? How could it be anything but fascinating? Besides, he sensed a bit of his own curiosity and wonder at the world in the stories about the burgeoning legend.

When Li Yi Nuo had returned, infuriated, he had told her to stay at the sect for a time. Word had reached him that Lu Sen had laid claim to a noble title and was building a house, as well as a sect. As an elder, Bahn Huizhong had some inkling of the kind of work that entailed. It was not something that the wise interrupted. It was only after the stories had died down and things seemed to be stabilizing that he decided that he would accompany Li Yi Nuo to visit this Lu Sen. It was purely for her protection and not at all to satisfy his own curiosity. Although, he had admitted to himself that those strange stone houses that they had stayed in on more than one occasion had brought his curiosity nearly to a full boil.

Arriving at the sect of Judgment’s Gale had not disappointed. There was a small town located nearby and the wall around it almost glowed to his eyes because the protections were layered so thickly on it. The wall around the sect was, oddly enough, far less obviously reinforced. It was only after studying it for a while that he realized why it seemed that way. The wall around the town had been raised by many people over a period of time. The wall around the sect had been made by one hand, and a hand that knew its business. Bahn Huizhong thought that he might be able to breach that wall if he put enough effort into it, but it would not be fast or easy.

He had been slightly annoyed at Li Yi Nuo when they approached the gate. He had meant for this to be a cordial meeting, but she had marched up to the guards and demanded to see that bastard, Lu Sen, before he realized he needed to stop her. The guards, a pair of peak formation foundation cultivators, had traded skeptical looks but raised no objections. One of them had simply asked who they were and what sect they came from, then disappeared inside. It had been a test of restraint not to expand his spiritual sense and get a quick peek at the compound itself. He wasn’t sure if it was just good sense or a legitimate intuition, but something told him that would be a poor decision. Instead, he waited patiently as the remaining guard kept a watchful eye on them.

Farmers passed by on their way into town. It was clear that they had long since grown used to the presence of the sect and even to unknown cultivators. The farmers would offer respectful bows but didn’t linger to stare or race off in fear. Bahn Huizhong approved. It suggested a healthy relationship between the sect, the town, and the mortals who lived nearby. Something he had seen far too rarely in the world. It took perhaps fifteen minutes before there was a brief buzz of activity that could be heard on the other side of the gate. That was a surprise. It was routine to make guests wait hours or even days to meet an elder, and it wasn’t unheard of for people to wait weeks or months to meet a patriarch. That was assuming said patriarch wasn’t in closed-door cultivation, which could extend that wait indefinitely.

The gate swung open, and a man stepped through it. He was a tall man, almost shockingly tall, and it was clear that he carried a lot of muscle. Yet, his skin was the most arresting feature. It was a white so perfect it looked like bleached bone. While advancement had a way of burning off imperfections and leaving the skin pristine, this went beyond that. The man is an alchemist, thought Bahn Huizhong. Perhaps this is the result of some experiment that went wrong. With his own limited knowledge of alchemy, he knew it was just a guess and swiftly dismissed those thoughts. He regarded the other cultivator and tried to get a sense of the man. There was a hint of displeasure about him, and a touch of impatience, but the overwhelming impression the man gave off was one of raw power and absolute assurance.

Bahn Huizhong had met men like this before, and they weren’t made in the confines of a sect. They were made by testing themselves against a hostile world and surviving to tell the tale. This was a man who had done battle, real battle, with nothing but his own strength to save him. One look at Lu Sen told Bahn Huizhong everything he needed to know about the stories Li Yi Nuo had told him. They were all true, and he had rarely been so excited to meet a person. He was preparing to step forward and introduce himself when Li Yi Nuo, the foolish girl, opened her mouth to speak.

“What in the thousand hells happened to you?”