Unintended Cultivator

After that foolishness with Lan Shu, Tong Qianfan, and their students, Sen realized that he simply didn’t have it in him to put up with anything even remotely aggravating. At first, he thought that he was exhibiting a horrific lack of discipline, but he quickly realized that the real problem was that he hadn’t given himself enough time to recover from the tribulation. While he had faced death more often than anyone his age ever should have needed to do so, he hadn’t come so close to it in a long time. He wasn’t sure he could have gotten any closer to it without actually dying. The experience had rattled him more than he realized. So, he simply announced that he was done for the day and walked out of the building.

He’d gone looking for Ai and found her, although he hadn’t approached. She was playing with some of the Xie children. The sight of it made him deeply uncomfortable, but he supposed that’s what it was to be a parent. Watching your child do things that you wished they wouldn’t and keeping your mouth shut about it. Sen didn’t expect that he was going to have fewer of those experiences as she grew up. He could protect her from many dangers, but he couldn’t protect her from forming connections with other people. It was almost inevitable that she would decide that she liked people that he disliked on principle or for good cause. That didn’t preclude the option of keeping a watch over her from a safe distance. He hadn’t been standing there for more than ten minutes when he felt someone approach.

“Master Feng,” said Sen before he could actually see the man.

“Sen,” said an amused Master Feng. “You’re getting better at that.”

“Not really. But I’m not sure I could call myself a cultivator if I didn’t recognize your presence.”

The elder cultivator stepped up next to Sen and eyed the scene with a pensive expression.

“I have to admit, I’m surprised that you allow her to associate with them.”

“It’s not easy,” said Sen, “but the world is already full of senseless conflicts. I will not teach her to hate. I can hate enough for both of us.”

“Hmmm,” said Master Feng noncommittally.

“Of those children? Right now? No, that doesn’t worry me. That’s all harmless. But those children will grow up someday. I do worry about that. I worry that she’ll let her childhood affections lead her into poor choices someday.”

“A concern that I share. But it’s not something we can change without changing her in ways I don’t think either of us wants to see.”

“That’s the heavens’ own truth,” said Master Feng. “Better to let her be a child a while longer. The world will break her heart often enough without either of us rushing her toward it.”

Sen and Master Feng, arguably two of the most dangerous men on the planet, watched as Ai and her friends made up a game that involved kicking and carrying around one of the shadow balls that Sen always made sure were on hand. Eventually, Master Feng turned his attention back to Sen.

“Did you talk to your king friend about the preparations?”

Sen nodded, but it wasn’t an enthusiastic nod. Master Feng had been very clear that a massive conflict with the spirit beast population was coming. It wasn’t a question of if they were coming for the humans, just a question of when they would launch their genocidal quest. Sen had taken the threat seriously and warned Jing about it. He had spoken to Jing on several occasions over the last year about ways that they could all prepare.

“I can’t say that I like that look on your face,” observed Master Feng.

“It’s not good news. Even with the warning coming from you through me, the only person taking it seriously is Jing. His position is much more stable now but no one wants to believe that the spirit beasts are that organized. To say nothing of them not wanting to believe that war is coming. His position lets him do a lot, but he can’t fend off a threat of this magnitude with nothing but his own resources. Even if those resources are the resources of a kingdom. You know how things work here. There are entire pieces of this country that are part of the country in name only. There are also large parts that are more effectively under the control of a noble house than the royal family. The sects I spoke with are taking it a little more seriously, simply because they’ve seen strange spirit beast activity, but even they’re moving slowly.”

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“The damn fools,” muttered Master Feng. “We can’t visit every sect and noble on the continent to try to convince them. We don’t have that kind of time. And even if you, me, Caihong, and Kho all decided to take the battle to them, there’s too much continent. Hells, even if we managed to convince every nascent soul cultivator this side of the Mountains of Sorrow, there’s still too much continent to cover. At best, we could maybe hold the line on this side of the mountains.”

“Would that be such a bad thing? Are we really that concerned with a bunch of power-mad cultivators who like slavery or the next best thing to it?” asked Sen.

The thought of the kind of nations that lay beyond those mountains still left a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d only had a handful of encounters with representatives from those nations, and those were not fond memories. Master Feng gave Sen a reproachful look.

“That’s an unworthy thing to say, Sen. I know you don’t have any love for the cultivators in power there. But are you truly willing to sacrifice all of the mortals there as well just because you don’t like their leaders?”

It was a valid point, an annoyingly valid point, but Sen was having a hard time separating his loathing for those cultivators from his big-picture thinking. He knew that spirit beast attacks on those nations wouldn’t target cultivators and leave the mortals in peace. If he thought that’s how things would go, he’d probably sign up to help those spirit beasts run their war. He didn’t want to see mountains of mortal corpses pile up because he wouldn’t give that part of the continent a second thought. He also recognized that it was much easier for him to ignore their plight because he didn’t know them. Unlike Master Feng, Sen had never spent time in that part of the continent. He had no friends there. No family. There was no human face for him to attach to all of that suffering. Those people were less than strangers to him. They were an abstract idea. Plus, the very idea of keeping those cultivators in power made him feel sick to his stomach.

“I may not want that, but I have no interest in helping those leaders keep their power. And, as you said, we can’t be everywhere. If I have to make a choice about where to spend my time and energy, the people and things I love are here. So, I will focus my efforts here.”

Sen could almost feel the disapproval radiating off of Master Feng. It made him want to shift his weight back and forth. He hated feeling like he was disappointing Master Feng. The elder cultivator had given him so much, a life he could never have imagined as a child. For all that, Sen wasn’t about to pretend that he cared more than he did. If things went the way Master Feng expected, the lie would be exposed before too long. It was better to be upfront about things. If he made his priorities clear, he hoped that it would prevent him from needing to say no to things he simply wouldn’t do later. Master Feng let out a slow breath.

“It’s so easy to forget how young you are. You’ve advanced so fast. I have to keep reminding myself that you’ve never seen a true war before. By the time most people reach your level of cultivation, they’ve been through the fall of a few nations. You may hate those cultivators. You may hate everything they represent. You may also have to set it all aside. The storm that’s coming isn’t coming for one nation. It’s coming for all of humanity. If humanity is to survive it, you may find that joining hands with those people you hate is the only way to make it happen.”

Sen shook his head. If survival came down to that, he wasn’t entirely convinced that humanity deserved to survive. It’d feel like giving his silent consent to enslaving mortals. If the alternative was a world where his daughter would be under siege for the rest of her existence, though, he might have to make that choice. Of course, if they succeeded in ending the war, nothing said that Sen couldn’t go on a little rampage if he found himself on the other side of the mountains. Hells, he thought, it wouldn’t be the first time I ushered in a change in political leadership. The gods know that those bastards almost certainly have it coming. He’d killed people for much worse reasons than that they were slavers.

“If there’s no other choice, I may have to do as you say,” Sen agreed. “But I hope you don’t expect me to like it. And I hope they won’t think it makes them safe from me.”

Master Feng eyed Sen and then snorted.

“If you decide to throw yourself a little culling after the fact, I’m certainly not going to stop you from doing it.”

“Are you looking for an invitation?” asked Sen.

Master Feng stroked his chin thoughtfully before he said, “Travel can be a lonely business. I expect I could be persuaded to keep you company.”

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