Unintended Cultivator V10: Chapter 20 – This Is Not a Gift

The assembled mortals from the town looked nervous but not afraid. They were all respectful toward him, but Sen’s relationship with these mortals still borrowed a bit from the more casual approach he’d taken with them in the early days. He was happy for that today. He didn’t want them to be frightened of him today. That would come soon enough. It was one thing for them know he was powerful. It would be something else entirely for them to feel the tremendous gap between his power and the power most of them were about to acquire. He saw Wang Bo and Li Hua in the crowd. If Li Hua was in the crowd, though, it made him wonder where little Zhi was at the moment. He was sure that Li Hua had left her daughter somewhere safe, but he still worried about her. Sen expanded a little of his spiritual sense outward.

He had to suppress an annoyed sound when he found Zhi and Ai half a mile up in the sky on the back of Dancing Cloud. He didn’t particularly like the idea of his very breakable daughter and niece of choice that far up in the sky. Not that he thought that the sky monster would let either of them fall, let alone fall all the way down to the ground. He’d had a private and pointed conversation with the Fenghuang about what she could expect if such an event came to pass. The sky monster had seemed both offended and horrified that he would even entertain the notion that she might let Ai fall to her doom. Despite some fledging attempts to understand just what in the thousand hells kind of power his daughter wielded over everything bird and bird-like, it remained a mystery to him.

Some of that was simply his unwillingness to do anything too intrusive to her. She was still very young and, as far as he was concerned, didn’t need some cultivator poking at her insides with qi without great need. He had defined great need as serious illness or injury. She didn’t seem to be harmed by all those connections to the birds, so that great need was absent. The other part was time. He could either choose to spend time with Ai as her father, or he could engage in research to satisfy his own curiosity. He didn’t have the time to do both. That was a choice that wasn’t a choice. He would choose being her father every single time without hesitation and without fail. He could live with that unsatisfied curiosity.

Still, the presence of Li Hua and the woodcutter Wang Bo gave him a moment of pause. He’d been thinking about all of this in general terms. He hadn’t considered that people he was friendly with, if not exactly friends, would be included in his bid to turn almost cultivators into actual cultivators. He didn’t want to see either of them sacrificed on the battlefields to come. Just as importantly, he was concerned about how well Li Hua would make the transition. Most of the mortals who had been invited were young men and women who had come to learn how to use weapons at the academy. Wang Bo was probably the second oldest at nineteen or twenty. Sen considered him to be on the outside edge of what might be deemed a safe age for a mortal to begin cultivating. Even then, Sen had concerns about the viability of the young man’s long-term growth.

Li Hua was closer to Sen’s own age. She wasn’t old for a mortal. She could conceivably live another fifty or sixty years. For a cultivator, though, there were reasons they started so young. The qi channels tended to atrophy as mortals aged. They grew brittle. The demands of cultivation could shatter them if they were too brittle. There was also the problem of purging impurities. Sen had overcome those problems once before with Tiu Li-Mei, but their situations were different. Tiu Li-Mei had been a skilled warrior. She’d endured harsh training and conditioned her mind to cope with pain. Even then, it had been an arduous road for her.

Sen didn’t imagine that Li Hua’s life had been easy, but persevering through mentally trying experiences wasn’t the same as learning to push through physical torment. He was not even remotely comfortable with the amount of agony this choice would bring into Li Hua’s life. At the very least, he would need to have a frank conversation with her about the suffering she would be volunteering to endure. After a moment of thought, he realized he should have Tiu Li-Mei talk with the seamstress. The former court guard would be more knowledgeable about the details of that grueling process than Sen himself. He had been a mere witness. Tiu Li-Mei had lived through it. Yes, he thought. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll have the two of them talk.

When Sua Xing Xing subtly poked his arm, Sen brought his attention back to the present. The mortals were growing a little restless as he stood there not saying anything. He lifted a hand in both greeting and as a signal. The mortals grew still and attentive.

“As you all know, we are living in dark days. Spirit beasts are savaging the kingdom. We have reason to believe that the same is happening elsewhere. Village and towns have ceased to exist. Sects have vanished beneath that tide of death. Cities are under siege.”

There were mutters and murmurs from the crowd of townspeople. Sen hadn’t hidden the news from them, but this was the first time they were hearing it from his lips. It seemed to mean more to them when it came from him, because most of them traded uncertain, frightened looks. A few, such as Wang Bo, kept their eyes firmly locked on him. Sen took a breath and continued.

“There are many traditions around cultivation. One of them is that you must ignite your cultivation yourself if you wish to become a cultivator. In times of peace, this practice is cold but reasonable. There are only so many sects to provide training, only so many resources to be given to support advancement. These are not peaceful times. The war has passed us by so far, but it is very real. It will find us all before the bloody business is finally done. In times like these, traditions are often discarded in the name of survival,” said Sen and waved his hand.

He summoned a specific table from one of his storage rings. On that table sat the neat rows of stone vials that he and Auntie Caihong had carefully filled with elixirs to ignite the cultivation of a mortal on the cusp. The mortals stared at the vials. Some wore expressions of confusion. Others who had understand his implication stared with wonder or even something akin to greed.

“You were all summoned here because you are close to igniting your cultivation but, for one reason or another, it’s been judged that you will not achieve it. These elixirs will help you take that step.”

Every pair of mortal eyes were locked on those vials now. He couldn’t blame them. How many mortals had dreamed, wished, and prayed that they might become cultivators? Now, he was offering them what likely seemed a miracle condensed into the liquid those stone vials harbored.

“Before you decide,” Sen said, “understand what I am offering you here. This is not a gift or an answered prayer. Being a cultivator means enduring suffering. You must struggle to advance with even the heavens working against you. You must learn. And you must fight.”

That last word brought every eye back to his face, where they beheld a face carved in stone.

“If you take a vial and become a cultivator, you will be required to fight the spirit beasts. You may be sent from here to fight them in other places. It is entirely possible that you will die in those places. One more casualty lost before a spirit beast tide the likes of which the world has not seen in tens of thousands of years. Do not mistake these vials for gifts. They are a curse that will condemn you to the front lines in a war I don’t know we can win. But if we do not fight, humanity itself will be swallowed up by darkness and forgotten.”

The greed and wonder had faded from their eyes, washed away by Sen’s words. They had been replaced by consideration and by fear. He would help them achieve this goal if they truly wanted it, but he would extract a heavy price for that assistance.

“I will give you an hour to decide. Talk to each other. Consult your consciences. Pray. Then, decide if the price for this is one you’re willing to pay,” said Sen before he took a few steps back from the table.

“You didn’t work very hard to convince them,” noted Sua Xing Xing. “It almost sounded like you were trying to talk them out of it.”

“I was trying to talk them out of it. Some of them no doubt thought they were about to inherit power and even wealth. Maybe not today but someday. All they’ll be inheriting is brutality, battlefields, and the very high probability of their deaths. I’m not eager for them to seize that particularly opportunity.”

Sua Xing Xing frowned as she considered the mortals. Sen followed her gaze. There were several small groups of townspeople. Some were filled with people wearing earnest expressions as they spoke passionately. He sighed at the knowledge that those people were going to take a vial. Other groups were filled with those who wore mixed expression of uncertainty and guilt. Sen hoped that they would choose sanity over cultivation. He watched with relief as a few people simply turned and walked away. By the time the hour was drawing to a close, most of the mortals had come to take a vial. They were given instruction about where to go. More experienced cultivators were waiting to help guide them through the process. When Li Hua walked up to the table, Sen stopped her with a small gesture. He just looked off to the side. She gave him a distrustful look but walked to where he’d indicated. When the last of the mortals had retrieved their vials, Wang Bo among them, Sen stored the table and vials. He turned to face Li Hua. Her eyes flashed with anger.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

“Your situation is a little different. Before you make your choice, there’s someone I want you to speak with.”

“Who?” she asked suspiciously.

“Someone who can explain to you exactly how excruciating this will be for you.”