Honoured ancestor, this child greets you
And comes to you with news aplenty
My name is Aganbar, titled “Earth Scourge”
Apprentice to the great Toa, foremost sage of Arzom.
Ancestor, your child has attained feats
And gone further than any other in the history of our line
A lot of this is thanks to my master, Toa
It was he who found and raised me to my standing
Believing in my talent and cultivating it to this extent
The greater portion of is due to my own effort
The hard work, the blood, sweat and toil
I have put into bettering and proving myself
I have climbed higher than I ever thought possible
My talent is recognised and unquestioned,
My might unparalleled among my peers
I have none among my peers to call my equal
Despite everything, I have made to the peak.
Sadly, this is not enough,
I have proven my worth,
My skill, power and intellect.
I have cut out a niche for myself.
And yet still one thing holds me back
And prevents me from reaping the fruits
Of the labour I so painfully sowed
There’s one thing I cannot change
That I am low born
My parents were but lowly clerks
And I have no illustrious history.
For some, this is cause for mockery
As they can never claim superiority in any other matters
Long have I grown weary of their jests
Long have I suffered at their hands
Thankfully, a way presented itself.
You see, my great ancestor,
This child is too talented, too powerful
Too skilled and too mighty
Though I possessed no known legacy,
Many refused to believe I was of “new blood”
Even I bought into it. Who does not dream of it?
The chance of being a descendant
A scion of long lost house or
Child of some ancient clan.
Eager to be rid of it,
What I considered my one failing,
I sought to prove it, beginning my search
To trace our family lines and past
It didn’t take long.
No, It didn’t take long at all.
Six generations!
Six generations, that’s all I found!
Ending of course with yourself.
Six! When some boast of a thousand.
Oh how they jeered, my detractors,
When they heard of my findings.
Low Born! They called me.
Villager! Upstart! They reminded me.
So eager were they to point
That I was the second mage of my line.
That my great legacy was yours
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
The legacy of the village goatherd.
I will admit, they got to me.
For a time, it was all I could think of.
But then an epiphany struck me.
Do not all legacies start somewhere?
Do not all families start somewhere?
Nothing simply springs into being.
With such thoughts in my head,
This child came to a conclusion.
Our family might have no great legacy now,
But that did not mean we never will.
I would be the one to leave that legacy.
The question was, how?
I have none in my blood.
Nor did I have the means
Talented I might be but I am no God
Nor am I as great, as brilliant or as foolish
As the Infamous O’be.
Whose acts incurred the wrath of the heavens
Thankfully, not all legacies are of blood
There are techniques and weapons.
They can be materials, land or titles.
It was here that I saw it.
Like a bolt from the blue, it hit me.
Opening my eyes to my stupidity.
Legacies are nought but inheritances
Things passed from generation to next
To ensure their continuity and prosperity
Mine might be but six old
But we surely had that,
Didn’t we?
And so I began my search anew
I sought among the things
That I had once thought irrelevant
The answer lay with you, honoured ancestor
It was under my nose the entire time
And yet I never saw it.
You were but one of many that year.
Refugees fleeing the destruction
Brought by the raiding daemon hordes
A child then, you barely understood
What happened and the reason why
Why you were now alone.
Some kind fellows dropped you off
At Tha’nen Village, our would be home.
Where growing up, you worked odd jobs
Doing any and everything
That would earn you food and shelter
Until one day, you hatched a plan.
Making off into the highlands
And surprising all when you returned
For you came back with a goat.
Some bleating wild thing
That pulled at its restraints
As you dragged it into the village.
I can only imagine their shock
When over the months, the years
You’d head back into the highlands
Bringing back goats when you could.
Until you built a respectable flock.
And changed the fates of our line.
I even saw, hanging in our homestead,
The horns of that buck
First to born in our household.
The one you killed and sacrificed
According to the old ways.
You pleased Heaven and Earth that day.
I found our family legacy.
My detractors were right all along
I carried the legacy of a goatherd.
Now I no longer shy from it.
How can I be ashamed of it?
The inheritance that ensured our continuity.
It changed you from handyman to shepherd
It gave you capital to trade.
Years later, it gave you standing and dowry
To have your grandchild, my grandfather
Marry the daughter of the village chieftain,
And it eventually made me, me.
If not for that goat herd,
How would my father, his issue
Be sent to the city when his gift awoke?
If not for that goat herd,
How would he have paid his tuition?
How would he have met my mother?
No longer was I troubled
By my humble beginnings.
No longer was it a failing.
When my detractors used it
I would smile proudly.
For I am the scion of a goatherd.
It took a while but I found
That all great families had similar
Or at times, even worse beginnings.
The illustrious Tombstone Warriors?
Nothing but a family of undertakers
Who gained an affinity for death qi.
The great Fan Clan?
Their ancestor was a thief
Whose luck changed one day
After stealing a rank four pill.
The start of the Piddletons?
A prostitute and an unknown father.
They protested it of course.
But I had proof. Always have proof.
Soon, the point was made.
We all have humble beginnings.
Some even have shameful ones.
None jeered at our legacy again.
Still, great ancestor, I must apologise.
I am sorry. I truly am.
Not just for denying you all these years.
But for what comes next.
If that episode taught me one thing.
It is that our family might change
One day our descendants
Might be ashamed as I once was.
They will see neither your worth
Or your immense contribution.
Like others, they will recount their history
From an entirely different point.
They will likely begin with me.
The great and unparalleled Aganbar.
And ignore the story of the goatherd.
I can only beg you on their behalf.
I can only plead so you understand
That it will not be by my doing.
I can only promise to do all I can
To prevent any such thing from happening.
I will mark my name in all the books
And have them know you too
I will ensure that our line never forgets
How it begun.
I will do this because this child
Ancestor, this child has inherited more from you
Than anyone else thus far.
I gained your name and your spirit.
From the horns of that old buck
I crafted my signature focus
Thanks to you, I am me.
I am no longer ashamed great ancestor
No more do I hide the truth
I am Aganbar, the mightiest Sage in Arzom
Everyone will know.
My ancestor was a goatherd.
His name was Aganbar too!
An epistle written by Aganbar, “Earth Scourge”. The Lord High Magus of Arzom during the Skylight years. Perhaps the most famous mage of his time, it is said that he carried a distinctive staff that had a headpiece crafted from the spiralling goat horns. Unsurprising, as his family name “Boarsima” literally means, goatherd. His clan, even today, keep a large herd of the animals. They are all daemons reportedly bred since the clan’s founding.
Aganbar from "Agan ba wu" / "Agan ba zar" translates into "Surpassing all others" or "Greater than the rest" in my native tongue.
Author's Note:
Sigh. Like I thought. No one cares much for my specials. I'll just put this one here so that those who never go the patreon page to read them will see just what they usually consist of. This one is an epistle on some of the common xianxia themes.
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