ericdontigney

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 50 – The Jianghu, Part 1

As summer slowly unfolded and the mountain once more teemed with life, Sen’s cultivation followed along in its slower path. While he trained alone or with Uncle Kho’s guidance, he gathered and cycled the misty qi that pervaded the courtyard. Sometimes, he would travel away from the manor and gather the thinner qi from the mountain itself. As he did, he tried to understand why one clearing was strong in earth qi, while another mere minutes away was dominated by wood qi. He let his spiritua...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 10 - Dinner and a Job

Kalan trailed after the enormous Tessan, who guided them into a living room. He knew what to expect and what not to expect from previous visits. There were a pair of small couches and a chair arranged around a small table. The furniture was simple and held a clean elegance so subtle that it made Kalan nervous to sit on them. He feared he might bring down their value through simple proximity. There were equally elegant cabinets scattered throughout the space. They held small curiosities from d...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 9 - Sentimentality

Kalan sent Fresia home to explain things. He also sent a slice of cake for the girl’s mother. It wasn’t much, but it might soften the blow a little. While he was sure that the woman would be relieved that her living situation was about to stabilize, he rather doubted she’d like how it was happening. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t mind that, either. Kalan had firmly declined the offer to come meet Fresia’s mother. He’d already done half a dozen things he hadn’t wanted to that day...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 8 - Colle

Elsewhere

Banjin Colle idly checked the timepiece he kept in his pocket. It was an ancient thing of springs and gears that he’d found hiding on a shelf in a shop on some backwater planet. He searched his memory for the name of the planet and came up empty. He supposed it was possible that he’d never known its name in the first place. He’d bought the timepiece on a lark, amused by the anachronism of owning such a thing. Banjin had learned early on that people in dangerous ...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 7 - Patonga’s Place

Despite being in the rougher part of the station, Patonga’s did a brisk business most days. Kalan had to assume they did okay since the restaurant had stood the test of time. It had been there when he arrived. It had even been his place of employment for a short while, during the brief interlude between his arrival and his first job on a cargo transport. A decade later, it was still standing when most of the other shops around it had changed hands half a dozen times in the intervening years...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 6 - Hard Currency

The girl looked ready to bolt every two seconds until Kalan led her back out into the bazaar. Surrounded by people she knew, people who might intervene if she made a racket, seemed to give her a modicum of calm. Plus, there was no avoiding the open market now. He’d need hard currency for Monsell. The loan shark wasn’t the kind of man who appreciated other people creating digital trails that led back to him. As he knew they would, familiar faces called out to him and asked about fresh news...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 5 - Fresia

Kalan made it through the open bazaar of stalls and hawkers to one of the lifts without incident, nodding to a few familiar faces as he went. With a casual word, he sent the lift hurtling downward toward the lower decks. He supposed most people living on the station considered it a bad neighborhood, but he felt most comfortable there. Those were the people who took him in and helped him find work when he needed it most. The lift doors opened and he stepped out into a down-market version of th...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 4 - Prence

Kalan stopped and looked back at the dock officer who just muttered the words, “Damn refugee,” under his breath. Kalan didn’t recognize the officer. He was several years younger than the ship’s captain and was probably fresh on the job. Even so, it didn’t excuse his words. Kalan walked back and stood in front of the officer, staring down at him.

“Would you care to repeat those words to my face?”

The officer sneered at him. “You heard me. You’re a damn refugee. Yo...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 3 - Cobalt 7

On balance, Cobalt 7 was nothing special. It was a mid-size space station just like thousands of others spread across the known galaxy. A cylindrical central structure that served as a residential habitat and hub for businesses supported its docking ring. Transport pods whisked visitors back and forth between the ring and the central structure. Kalan supposed it made a certain amount of sense as a security measure. Keeping visitors on the ring until they cleared screening meant the station re...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 2 - Transit

Now…

A chime brought Kalan up out of the nightmare, though he admitted most people would consider it nothing more than a dream. He wiped cold sweat from his face before he answered.

“Yes.”

The precise voice of his android navigator wafted into the room. “We’re an hour from destination, Captain. You wanted to be informed.”

“Acknowledged. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Kalan dragged himself out of bed. His sleep had not been...

Rinn's Run: Chapter 1 - Judgment

Ten years ago…

Kalan Rinn, acolyte of the Great Temple, stood before the elders. His shoulders were tense, back as unyielding as a titanium rod. He faced them with a fixed, blank expression. He wouldn’t show weakness. He wouldn’t show them fear, even though he knew what was coming. He refused to glance aside at his father, afraid of what he might see. His father had poured all of his knowledge and secrets into his only son. His father who had once said that Kalan showed m...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 49 – Body and Spirit

For all the time they spent on him, Sen never wholly lost sight of the fact that Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong were practicing cultivators in their own right. From time to time, he’d see Master Feng practicing qinggong techniques, flying horizontally through the air and using the courtyard walls as stationary platforms. He’d occasionally find Auntie Caihong scowling down at some pill that hadn’t come out the way wanted or, sometimes, just not the way she expected. So, he wa...

Audio Update for Patrons

I don't really have anything to add that you won't hear in the file. 

Quick Note

This is just a quick note to let you know to keep an eye out later today for an audio post (my first on here). I'll be discussing a few interesting things about Unintended Cultivator and another project. 

Also, yes, there will be a new Unintended Cultivator chapter today for the My Hero tier. It's just a bit delayed because of ***SECRET PROJECT STUFF*** 

Keeps your eyes peeled for the chapter and the audio post!

Jericho Lott: Chapter 47

There was an awkward pause then, as nobody said anything, apparently waiting for someone else to make a decision. I really didn’t want to give anyone the impression that I was game to be Decision Guy, but I was keenly aware that there was a timer ticking down on us all.

“So, should we get going?” I asked the group.

Almost everybody nodded, but the burly guy, Jacob, crossed his arms and shook his head. I looked at him, the question on my face. He pointed to the restaurant. 2023-05-17 08:10:31 +0000 UTC View Post

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 48 – Foundation Building, Part 2

Sen smiled to himself as he ran around the walls that surrounded the house. He remembered all too well the misery of that first run. The desperate gasping for air. The terrible burning in his legs and arms. Yet, as sharp as those memories were, Sen also felt oddly distant from them. Some of it was just the stark change in his body. Sen didn’t dwell on it that much, but he was aware that the bony skinniness he’d arrived with had been replaced by hard, defined muscle. He’d grown taller as...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 47 – Foundation Building

During the day, Sen was as diligent and driven as ever. If anything, he was even more diligent and driven. Most days, he was up before dawn making food. By the time Auntie Caihong or Uncle Kho drifted out for their first cup of tea, Sen had often been outside practicing for hours. Sen had found that he needed those extra hours just to get through everything. Between his unarmed combat forms and his jian styles, real practice could easily take up to five or six hours a day. Then, he ate a quic...

The Author and the Dao

So, several times now, I've had people ask me if I'm going to be talking about the Dao in this book (Unintended Cultivator) and presumably subsequent books in the series. I put together what I think is a fairly cogent answer to that question in a comment over on Royal Road, so I'm going to put it up here as well.

This is my take on including the Dao, at the moment. My personal understanding of Daoism is shallow. Like, I could probably give an adequate one-paragraph answer about what Dao...

Falling Leaf

Okay, clearly I'm not much of an artist...but I feel like this captures the essential spirit of the ghost panther.

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 46 – The Way of the Spear

Auntie Caihong kept teaching Sen for a few weeks after the new year, but he could tell that would soon change. She stopped introducing new things she wanted him to learn. Instead, she revisited everything that she had taught him. In some cases, it was brief enough that he could tell she was just checking that he remembered. She asked him some general questions about identifying medicinal plants and alchemical materials. She only got specific about a few of the rarer ones for which he could fi...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 45 – Year’s End, Part 2

Sen had to seek out Ma Caihong’s help to come up with a gift idea for Uncle Kho. Her recommendation had been so straightforward that Sen felt a little stupid for not coming up with it himself. He was very happy that it was something he could do without traipsing all over the mountain. Sen’s recent advancement had gone a long way toward making time spent in the cold something he could handle without much thought, up to a point. A few hours, even most of a day, he could take in stride. Two ...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 44 – Year’s End, Part 1

As the weather turned from simply chilly to truly cold, Auntie Caihong’s lessons changed as well. Rather than learning about medicinal and alchemical plants in general, or how to make general healing salves and potions, Sen began learning about specifics. Ma Caihong pulled out charts that mapped the way energy should flow through the body that Sen was then bid to memorize. He learned about acupressure points and their uses in limiting pain and reducing bleeding. She started quizzing him abo...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 43 – Knowledge

Sen’s excitement about his new knowledge burned bright in him for a few days. Then, he came to, what was for him, a startling conclusion. While his new knowledge about the stages of cultivation had filled a deep-seated need in him, it hadn’t actually changed anything. That knowledge hadn’t made him any better at cultivation. It didn’t alter his opinion of cultivation. It had no influence on how they trained him. Most importantly, it hadn’t changed his goals in any obvious w...

Welcome Aboard/Chapter Links/Book Links

Hi there! There's been a flurry of new patron s

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 42 – Another Stage

“I feel strange,” said Sen.

He stood opposite of Master Feng in the courtyard. Yet, Sen was looking down at his own hand as he opened it and closed it, over and over. He’d felt strange ever since he’d come out of the cultivation room. While Sen assumed he spent a few hours locked in the struggle to contain and compress his qi, he’d been stunned to discover that he’d spent three days in that room. His mind still reeled at the idea. It had been one thing when stood watch over ...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 41 - Breakthrough

Sen intellectually understood what was happening. Both his master and Uncle Kho had spoken to him in general terms about five cultivation stages. They’d also been clear that there were smaller stages within the stages. When a cultivator transitioned between the major or minor stages, they were breaking through. Sen even understood that this was not his first breakthrough. Looking back, he could recognize several times that he had broken through while on the mountain. He had a small breakthr...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 40 – Medicine

While Sen took a couple of days to recover, physically and mentally, from his time out on the mountain, he was amused to watch a quiet but persistent power struggle develop between Uncle Kho and Ma Caihong. The part that Sen found most amusing was that struggle was about him, while it didn’t actually involve him directly. Both Uncle Kho and Ma Caihong wanted to take up the task of teaching him their skills immediately. For Uncle Kho, that meant formations and the spear. For Ma Caihong, that...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 39 – Making Peace

The first few minutes back at the house were surreal for Sen. Uncle Kho, who had been old and bald for as long as Sen had known him, had undergone a transformation. Now, he looked like he was only a bit older than Ma Caihong. The wrinkles on his face had been replaced with smooth skin. His head was completely covered with long, shiny black hair that had been pulled up into a topknot. While he still wore a beard, it wasn’t long, white, and flowing anymore, but trimmed close to his face. The ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 46

The rest of the drive to Chicago was a far less tense affair for me. Jessie didn’t have any moral qualms about what we were doing. As far as she was concerned, this was just going to be another day at work. A hard day, perhaps, but nothing all that unusual. That spared me any more deep philosophical debates. Instead, we mostly talked about Majorca. All I knew about the place was that it was a Mediterranean island and supposedly had good beaches. That left Jessie a lot of room to ta...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 38 – Walk and Talk

Much to Sen’s simultaneous relief and annoyance, the trip back to Uncle Kho’s home was a much less exciting time. While the beasts of the mountain didn’t fear Sen or didn’t fear him as much as he might have liked, they apparently lived in naked terror of Master Feng. Sen didn’t so much as sense a spirit beast aside from Falling Leaf on the return trip. Not having to fend off daily attacks did a lot to improve their speed. When Sen asked if there wasn’t a faster way, Master Feng ga...