Jake's Story (Apocalypse Cultivation) ENDING, ch 36

When Jake became aware of his surroundings again, he was sitting in a wooden chair in some sort of log cabin.  His body felt incredibly strange.  A new sensation crackled through his brain like lightning, but was somehow elusive.  When he tried to look inward and figure out what it was, it vanished.

His energy was all over the place in general.  Not only did he feel different internally, something seemed to be weighing on him, too.  He distantly remembered Morrigan explaining that moving “higher” in dimensions was hard on those from the lower realms...or something.  His mind was feeling a little mixed up.

The building he was in looked like it’d been made of rough-hewn timer, very different from how he’d imagined the murim world would look.  He’d been expecting bamboo, not pine.  The wooden floor was mostly bare.  Most of the furniture had been pulled to the walls, and standing in some sort of glowing array was his master from his first life.

Jake stood, cupping his fist in his palm and bowing politely.  “Student greets his teacher.”  He glanced up, and noted that the hand he’d cut off had been replaced with another.  The new hand looked almost like rubber, or maybe hard tar.  Ironically, it was actually more human-looking than Jake’s other hand now.

“I don’t know you.  But don’t worry, I won’t kill you.  I know your name is Jake.  Your goddess already explained some things to me so I wouldn’t destroy you the moment that you appeared.”  The old man harumphed, blowing out his long mustache.  “It is extremely disappointing to me that a student of mine from another timeline could be this stupid.  A champion.  Hah!  And you are one strange looking creature, too.  Shadow element?  Yes, that must be in.  You look like a humanoid demon beast, but have the soul of a mortal.  Bizarre.”

Jake blinked as his mind caught up with what his ears had just heart.  Another timeline?  How the hell… “Did The Morrigan tell you that, Master!?”

The short, pudgy old man waved a hand irritably.  Liver spots on his arm flashed in the light filtered through the rice paper covering the windows.  “Watch what names and titles you throw around, fool!  Especially in my home!  No, she did not tell me this.  I have eyes to see, don’t I?  I can sense your energy.  The bond between master and student is such that I can sense something lingering.  It didn’t take too much to figure it out.  I’m sure if your goddess hasn’t said anything about it, it’s just to help you make stupid decisions.  Gods are good at that.”

Jake was used to his master’s attitude, so he wasn’t surprised at all by the reception he was getting.  “She sent me here to train, to grow, I guess.  Since you are here, I would like to learn from you...if you will teach me again.”

Master Zi sighed theatrically.  “How could I have chosen such a dull apprentice?  Can’t you see the glowing lines on the floor?  I will be gone in moments.”

“...What?”

“Let me guess.  You come from a world overrun by evil, the dark, a lower dimension than this one.  And I accepted you as a student on a whim.”  The old man ran one side of his mustache through his fingers.  “Oh, do not try to cross the lines on the floor.  They will destroy you.  Gods make dimensional travel look like walking to the market, but that’s because they cheat.”

“What?”  Jake shook his head.  If he couldn’t keep up with his master, the crotchety old man might just stop talking altogether until he felt like it again.  “Yes, that is how we met.  I actually gave you a bottle of water and you said you were bored so you wanted to give me a demonstration of cultivation techniques.  When I asked why, you said it was because circle magic on my world was trash.  After I saw what you could do, I asked to be your student.  You said you were still so bored that even teaching an idiot like me was better than nothing to pass the time.”

Jake’s master chuckled.  “I figured it would be something like that.  Well, I am actually about to head to your world right now.  In your timeline, we would have been meeting in the future from this point.”

“That’s...I understand.”  Trippy, thought Jake.  “Are you going to teach anyone else?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, since you are going to earth, I actually have some recommendations for students, if you come across them.”

Master Zi moved one hand in a beckoning motion.  “Put the thoughts at the top of your mind.  I will gather them.  Hurry up.”

Jake nodded.  He was used to this.  His master could read his mind after a fashion, but only if someone prepared information for him and thought about it a certain way.

A moment later the old man announced, “Got it.  Ugh.  This is going to be dreadful.  What a terrible planet.”

Jake wanted to change the subject before the grumpy fucker could start ranting about earth again.  He’d already heard enough of that for a lifetime.  “If you don’t want to go, why are you going?”  The glowing lines on the floor had gotten brighter.  Jake pointed at them.  “This is not a simple array, even I can tell that.  It took you some effort.”

“Yes, well, the powers that be put out invitations, sometimes.  When new worlds join the Eternal Struggle, rewards can be earned for acting as a, ‘wandering trainer.’  That must have been why I was trained you, boredom or no boredom.  We get more consideration if we actually teach someone something.”

Jake rolled his eyes.  He knew better than to snap at his teacher or lose his temper.  The horrible old man loved to push people over their breaking point and then punish them for it later.  He made a face.  Being careful around gods was one thing, but he couldn’t completely hold his tongue with this old bastard.  “Oh come on, Master!  I might not be strong for this world, but I am a Gold Body Refiner.  And I’m a hero candidate, too.  You have no idea what I went through to get here!”

“A world hero, eh?  Very proud of that hero business, are you?  A monkey on a string.  Meat for the grinder.  And Gold Body Refinement, ha!  Yes, you are a gold...but you were less than that in your first life, were you not?  I can read the truth of it on your soul.  Smell the old disappointment.”

The old man grunted.  “I will admit you seem to have some potential now.  If I didn’t have to leave in a few minutes, I might have actually been curious enough about what you are to teach you something.  Pity.”

“Why don’t you just cancel the array?” asked Jake.

“Can’t.  It is borrowing power--it’s not all my own.  Trying to stop it now would destroy this entire mountain.”

Jake absently nodded before his gaze sharpened.  “Wait!  If you are leaving for sure, then what am I supposed to do?  Is your sect here, master?”

“I told you that I have a sect?”

Jakes heart fell as he slowly replied, “Yes.”

“Oh.  Well, I lied, then.  Running a sect is too much trouble.  Been there, done that.  It’s irritating that I have to deal with this right now, but if I taught you in any timeline…” the old man grimaced and scratched one cheek.  “I guess you can go find my granddaughter.  She is training at some fourth rate sect, likely an act of rebellion.  The sect is on the shore of Gem Sword Lake, between the Mount Hua Sect, and the cavern of wailing souls.  Her name is Alix.  She owes me a favor so if you find her, tell her I sent you.  Alix can help you some even though she follows a different dao and you feel weak as a rabbit.”  He rubbed a hand over his face.  “Dammit.  What was I thinking, other self?”

Jake was somewhat impressed by his teacher’s easy acceptance of time being rewound, but not exactly surprised by it.  “Is your granddaughter a dragon too, master?”

The old man’s eyes flew open.  “What!? How do you know that!?”

Jake chuckled.  Got you! That’s right motherfucker! He thought savagely.  The old bastard had never admitted to being a dragon in his first life, not once.  “You breathe out smoke when you snore sometimes.”

“I don’t snore!”

“That’s what you said in my lifetime, too.  And you do.  Besides, when I was training with you, you went to Colorado once to find a dragon and yell at him because one of his kin owed you money.  Or something.”  Jake didn’t add that the experience had been one of the scariest of his first life.

He’d only known this man for half a year, but during that time, Jake had seen a great deal of the post-apocalyse world.  Nothing on earth could fuck with his master.  The old man had fearlessly traveled wherever he’d wanted.  Monsters had fled from him.

It was too bad Master Zi was so lazy and had such a terrible personality.  He never seemed to do anything out of the goodness of his heart.  Being a dragon didn’t seem to have much to do with it, at least Jake didn’t think so.  The old man could occasionally show great kindness, especially to children and the poor.  But he never got off his ass to help out humanity as a whole, though, at least not while he was on earth.

And he had just disappeared one day without even saying goodbye.  Jake wanted to ask why, but this version of his master wouldn’t know.

Master Zi growled and a puff of smoke came from his nose.  When he saw the grey shadow in front of his face, he just growled deeper.  “I. Don’t. Snore.”  He snorted and flicked his sleeve.  “Just go find my granddaughter.  Then you aren’t my problem anymore.

Jake frowned.  “Wait.  Last time...or I guess in the future...when you were on my world...you were not even there for a full year.  My contract with Morri--with my goddess is for three years.  Why don’t I just wait here for you to come back?  It’ll only be a few months, right?”

Master Zi went silent and still for a handful of second before laughing so hard his eyes began to tear up.  He slapped his side.  “Three years?  Oh my.  Tell me student, what exactly was your agreement with your goddess, hmm?”

“I would be her champion for three years.”  If Jake could blush, he would have been beet red.  After all this time and everything he’d been through, his master could still make him very uncomfortable.  He didn’t even know why he was feeling embarrassed.  Something was tickling the back of his mind, though.

“Fool! You are a cultivator!  What were her exact words?”

Jake grimaced and cycled his cultivation base.  This was the first time he’d taken control of his energy in his new repaired body.  Everything still felt weird, but he could at least send some power to his memory.  “She said, and I quote, ‘Three local years is not a lot of time.  However, you have demanded three years, and I am potentially accepting your terms.  Due to your development and path, the most logical place to send you from here would be the world of murim.’”

Master Zi drew in a big breath before laughing even harder.  He slapped his thigh so hard it almost sounded like gunshots.  When he seemed like he might be settling down again, he looked at Jake, pointed, and laughed again.

Jake was patient and didn’t say anything.  He held his temper.  Trying to talk to his master when he was like this was pointless, and he actually did want to hear what the codger might say.

Finally, Master Zi wheezed out, “Three ‘local years.’  Boy, we are in a higher plane of existence, and a different dimension!  Time can run differently between planes and dimensions.  This array is locked on your home world.  I know of it.  One year on your world is close to five hundred years here.  So your goddess said three ‘local’ years.  Fool, your agreement means that you will be a champion for 1,500 years in the murim world.”  He started laughing again

The lines in the floor pulsed before growing so bright that Jake had to shade his eyes.  Master Zi disappeared in mid-laugh.  One moment he was there, the next he was gone.

Jake stared woodenly at the spot on the floor his old master had just been standing on.  “No wonder the terms were so good,” he whispered to himself.  He thought back to the entire conversation, and could figure out exactly where the negotiation had gone south.  Well, it hand’t been entirely bad.  He had still been promised a “good” deal and had no reason to think that hadn’t been true.  It just meant the value of what he’d been given was greater than he’d imagined.

Fifteen hundred years, he thought.  He moved to the door in a daze.  Sunlight hit his face.  If he’d been human, his eyes would have needed to adjust, but as a cultivator and a shadow ghoul, he could almost immediately see just fine.

He gasped.  “Now way,” he murmured.  It looked like there was a floating island in the sky, a tropical rainforest on top.  In the far distance were mountains larger than any Jake had ever seen or could imagine even existing.  Huge trees grew to his left, against the slope of the mountain the cabin was built on.  Thick, profound-feeling mist curled between the mountain he stood on and distant peaks.

A sudden screech made Jake turn his head, and his mouth went dry.  Flying high in the sky was a bird with burning feathers, its wingspan had to be at least half a mile.  It was easily the largest creature Jake had ever seen, larger than any living thing should grow.  Even from so far away, he could feel some of its awesome power.  The majestic phoenix, because that was what it had to be, practically radiated magnificent energy.  As large as it was, it flew impossibly quickly, disappearing into the distance after doing a circle over the distant peaks.

Jake gulped.  His mind reeled.  He retreated back into the building and his hand trembled as he closed the door.  “Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore,” he whispered.


--End of book 1, Trojan Nightmare


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