Chapter 291 - A Proper Revolutionary (Patreon)

No real notes to add this time! Back from my trip soon, but otherwise I have no big updates- enjoy the chapter!

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Raika sighs, staring (somewhat disappointedly) down at the writhing figure on the floor of the courtyard.

“It didn’t even break the skin, kid. You’re not even bleeding.”

“I…. I think you broke a rib…” Wei Zin gasps, his mouth flapping open and shut like a fish.

She pinches the bridge of her nose, groaning internally. “I can tell if I’ve broken someone’s rib. I have not broken your rib. Your rib is, at worst, bruised. There’s a nerve cluster there, which is why it hurts.”

Wei Zin finally manages to properly inhale, dragging in air and coughing loudly as he does. He makes it back up to his knees, his face flushed- but he doesn’t ask her why she just jabbed her hand into a nerve cluster, which is good. If he’d asked, she wouldn’t have said anything.

“Your pain tolerance is… middling at best,” she says, since he didn’t say anything. “You’re pretty good at pushing through said pain, but it does stop you for longer than it should. Frankly, it would be more surprising if it were the other way around- you’re still recovering from a week on the run, dehydration and a touch of starvation past that, and on top of that, you’re… kind of soft. It sits well on you, but it’s obvious you didn’t really do all that much, in terms of training.”

“I… my old master said that my cultivation speed is impressive for one my age, and-”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty five, master, with about seven years in seclusion.”

“Hmm. Ok, I’m not sure how cultivation works out here, though I assume it’s different. I used to be profoundly mediocre at cultivation, and I still made it to Core Formation realm at around that age. You’re not going to impress me with your level. Again, I don’t know how things work around here, but either way, your cultivation isn’t what’s in question, it’s your training. You lack muscle definition, your Qi saturation levels are low, your reflexes are half-baked, and while I agree that your cultivation-base is solid, it doesn’t really… stand out? To me, at least.”

She has to hold back a smile at the look of genuine anger peeking through Wei Zin’s facade. He’s an actor, that much she can tell- he’s much better at schooling his facial expressions than he is controlling his muscles or pain reactions.

“I… apologize, master. My standing in my Tribe was… political in nature. I was to marry into an alliance, one pre-arranged by an honored ancestor and our matriarchs. While I have some limited combat training, it was never intended to be my role.”

“And I understand that,” Raika says, leaning back. “I’m not criticizing you to put you down, I’m doing it to make you understand where you’re lacking. You asked to be my student, and in my generosity, matched only by my genius and stupidity, I have elected to agree. But right now, as you are, I’ve got a kid that’s… actually I don’t know his age, somewhere between nine and twelve, who can take more punishment and learn faster than you can. Just because you weren’t in a sect doesn’t mean you never got sect mentalities.”

This time the anger actually does bubble up, coming up clear alongside a growl in his voice. “I do not have a ‘sect mentality’. I do not take. I don’t start wars, I don’t destroy and degrade and disrespect everything around me.”

Raika laughs, a harsh little bark of sound. “That’s not a sect mentality, that’s an asshole mentality, and there’s plenty of folks everywhere who’ll indulge in it, fancy titles or not. A sect mentality is thinking that, because you’ve been shaped to your role and given power, you don’t need to learn anything new. Because you’ve followed instructions and done as you’re told and gotten strong in the ways you are told to be strong, you’re in the right. The Empire, for all that it’s probably the worst group of powerful bastards in the world, at least has that right- you always need to be looking for better ways to do things, new ways to improve and explore. They’re assholes about it, and they’ve got plenty of sect mentality of their own, but if I’m trying to be greater than any of them, I won’t accept anything less from a student of mine. Understood?”

Wei Zin doesn’t say anything for a while. She can tell that her words bother him- there’s adrenaline pumping through his system, anger and frustration and trauma all dancing across his synapses- but he is listening. 

She nods. “Good. Now sit properly- you’re going to show me how you cultivate.”

He blinks, shocked out of some of his frustration by the apparent reversal. “I… didn’t you just say that my cultivation doesn’t matter?”

“Great, so after this we’re going to work some more on your listening skills. Your training and mentality are lacking, but your cultivation seems mostly fine. It smells clean, though it’s got some funky chunks in it I’m trying to figure out. How would you normally cultivate?”

He looks around the courtyard, as if scandalized. She picks up on his meaning before he comes to terms with it- even back in the Empire, one doesn’t usually show off their cultivation techniques, much less explain them, out in the open air.

Too bad for him, she doesn’t care.

Firstly, there’s no one in earshot, and even if there were, she’s put some measures up against that. She still doesn’t know how to make any kind of silencing arrays, but tracking the presence of everyone in the entire city at once is… now in her power. So there. No one is close enough to overhear unless they’re using a special technique- and that’s what the sound-muffling moss on the nearby pillars and the chirping of “birds” are for.

So she just waits, and stares at him, until he finally decides to nut up and just talk.

“My… my cultivation technique is called Woven Bloom In Still Waters. It’s been passed down as one of the central techniques of the Shorrasa tribe for generations, and I’m honored to carry its legacy. The main practice is to sit perfectly still atop a pool of water, until one can maintain the stillness of the pool using only one’s Qi- then, you begin to weave grasses, similar to my outfit, into tools or clothing, imbuing the effects of what the grasses have grown from and without disturbing the pond.”

Raika nods. “Alright. Can you demonstrate it for me?”

He looks around sheepishly, steepling his fingers and sort-of bowing. “The method is very precise, master. I require the materials tied to the nature of my cultivation to progress it.”

She nods again, rubbing at her jaw a bit. 

“Alright then. Your technique is weak, so we’ll be changing that.”

He blinks.

“I-”

She holds up a hand, forestalling another outburst. “I did not say that it was bad, I said that it’s weak, and it is. Any cultivation technique that needs to precisely set its environment to be cultivated is weak. Get trapped somewhere, or lose out in environmental factors, and the fight is done. You need to be able to turn Qi that isn’t already perfectly suited to you towards your ends, so that it adds to your cultivation. If you want to find a quiet place, somewhere to weave and hold to the legacy you have, then you can do that, but you asked me to train you. I am not a very passive person.”

She watches him clench his hands in his lap, his svelte form tight with tension… and then watches him let go of it. 

Good. He can be decisive, then.

“I will not abandon the teachings of my ancestors, master,” he says. He meets her gaze, and his own is resolute. “And if you will not teach me, then I will simply have to find my own way of doing so.”

She smiles, a wide, toothy grin of sharp edges. “Excellent! Good! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

He blinks, a bit taken aback, but she’s already gotten up from her seat, walking back into the courtyard proper to hoist him up to his feet.

“A cultivator should have conviction! If you abandoned everything and everyone just to become strong, I just wouldn’t train you. I figured, what with your whole show of begging to be my student, that you had desire, but I’d like more than that in someone I’m training.”

“But… you’d already accepted me as-”

“Yeah, yeah, I go at my own pace. Anyways, abandoning your technique now would cripple you anyways, no reason to set you back to Qi-Gathering realm or to damage your meridians with something like that. Not unless we have to, anyways. What I’m recommending is that we adapt a new cultivation manual based on your current one- an evolution, not a replacement. Now, I want to lay down some ground rules.”

She jabs him in another nerve cluster, on the other side of his ribcage this time, and he goes down with a wheeze and a whimper, curling up around the site.

“Number one: always question me. If you get too annoying I’ll just throw you somewhere, but I don’t like sycophants and I won’t always be right.

“Number two: since I am not a cultivator, I will not be teaching you cultivation. I can and will teach you to change your mentality, to improve and expand your perspective, and show you how I think with my own, but my method is, in many ways, alien to how most people experience the world and especially cultivation. I will give you objectives, I will tailor your training, but what you actually make is yours and only yours, and must be from you and of you.

“Number three: If I am wrong, tell me immediately. I will either prove you incorrect and thus have an opportunity to gloat, or I’ll learn something new and be even more amazing than I currently am, which, as my student, only benefits you.”

Wei Zin lets out a half-choked breath as he recovers from the hit, forcibly relaxing his muscles and getting up to his knees.

“Glad you agree. Two more rules to go-”

He predicts what her pause entails way too late, and is once again on the floor, his spine arched as Raika’s precisely tailored blow hits on white-hot agony near his lower back.

“Number four: if I give you an order, you follow it. I mean that- I need you to put your life in my hands, because that’s what you asked me to take on. I don’t like to ever give orders, so when I do, it means that something is seriously wrong and you need to listen.

“Number five: you are free to leave at any time, and so long as we do not part on actively-trying-to-kill-each-other type terms, I will not penalize, hurt, or attack you, and you will still be able to count on my help if it is within my power to provide.

“Do you understand these rules?”

He manages to drag in a breath. Good. He’s getting faster at recovering.

“I… I understand, master.”

She lets out some air through her nose, sighing. “Ok. Good.”

With a wave of her hand, something that looks like a tree branch and very much is not one appears as if out of thin air.

Singheart is very nearly a part of her Body, now. Millions of veins and strands of tissue cover every square inch of the city, and she can see and experience all of it. Those few who take their sick and wounded to the roots to become one with the Overgrowth are gently reprimanded- those who would have been sacrificed are, instead, taken for healing inside of Raika’s Body and then returned. Otherwise, life has gone on in the city- besides the marked difference in a major cultural milestone, she has worked very hard to make it clear that she does not now rule the city, even as some of the higher level beings in town seethe at the demonstration that she easily could.

The branch, made of her own tissues and covered in optical camouflage, sets a series of points down over Wei Zin, like a cage, transporting water out of their depths and into a puddle around him. At the same time, strands below him hollow out a portion of space, turning a chunk of the courtyard into a shallow bowl. Next, she transforms some of the “branches”- with some, she simply pulls longer grasses she’s found out on the edge and transported here, while with others, she makes a passable imitation at plant-matter, one of the weaknesses of her current shapeshifting.

“Here. Like I said- show me how you cultivate. Once I have a better grasp on the stuff I’m sensing in your meridians, we can go from there. But… Wei Zin?”

He looks a little disoriented at just how quickly she reshaped the courtyard for him, and a little wet from the puddle he’s now sitting in- but he responds quickly, turning to face her with a questioning look.

“This will hurt. That is a rule of life, and that is a rule of me- pain is both an ally and an enemy, and while it can be ultimately harmful, it is something which can be useful, especially as a marker to push past your limits. If you want to evolve, to become more than who you are and what you would otherwise have been, there will be pain. Are you absolutely sure you want to put yourself in danger like this?”

For a few beats, it is quiet in the courtyard. 

“I’m already in danger, master,” he says, his voice quiet and steady. “I am in a world that has taken so much, and will only take more if I don’t do something about it. I’m certain.”

She smiles. “Good. I do love a proper revolutionary.”