Manipulating Qi is weird,

  Tantra says it’s like trying not to suffocate while holding your breath, and Erick can’t help but agree. It’s a losing battle, one Erick’s been fighting for a month since his core’s awakened, and it’s immensely frustrating. There were no signs for when he’d be able to manipulate Qi, one day he just woke up with a strange awareness of something inhabiting his heart. He could’ve forced the issue, but Tantra warned him against that course of action, saying it’s more likely to cripple him than not.

  So he followed her advice, as he always does, and now he’s meditating in their room in an extremely uncomfortable stance, trying to hold onto the thread for more than just a few dozen seconds.

  He lets out a high pitched whine when he loses control again.

  “Not bad,” Tantra says, “but not good either, I need you to progress faster if we’re going to even start on the control techniques.”

  “Yes master,” Erick drawls.

  Tantra chuckles, “I am no one's master, I’m just guiding your first steps on the path. When I’m confident enough in your survival, we can go back to my sect where you will meet the true masters.”

  “You’re the strongest one in our group, and you’re teaching me,” Erick points out.

  “That doesn’t qualify me Erick, a master student relationship has connotations I cannot fulfil.”

  “Like?”

  “Well firstly, protection. Rakan’s presence provided a bulwark between me and the greater threats present on a cultivators journey. I can’t do that, I can barely protect myself.”

  “But you're strong,” Erick pouts.

  “Not nearly strong enough Erick, not nearly strong enough.”

  Erick decides not to argue the point, Tantra has a weird relationship with strength. He can tell she’s constantly training from how she sometimes seems to gain an intense focus, or when she starts breathing really fast. Apparently that’s some sort of gathering method, Tantra doesn’t recommend he tries it since it can change your will, whatever that means.

  Not that he can even start gathering, he can barely sense his own core!

  “So what are the others?” he asks.

  “Well,” Tantra shrugs, “there’s the wisdom aspect of it all, the emparting of sage advice, I’m not nearly so old nor travelled to be wise. Then there’s the training aspect, I can’t really train you because I don’t understand how to gauge your limits. Rakan was really good at that, probably from his time helping as an assistant.”

  “But you're smart, and I can just limit myself.”

  “Intelligence and wisdom aren’t the same thing,” Tantra says, “perhaps if I were wise, I wouldn’t have rushed to come home at the first opportunity, and Rakan would still be alive.”

  “But then you wouldn’t have met me!”

  “Indeed,” Tantra chuckles as she ruffles his hair, much to his chagrin, “positives and negatives Erick, that’s the crux of every decision. Being able to properly measure them based on the information you have is a valuable skill.”

  “So, what’s the positive in training me?”

  “I get to see you survive, little mongrel.”

  Erick scowls, “I’m not a mongrel!”

  -

  Jorin takes a chisel made from his Qi, approaching the pulsating mass of calcified bone, it radiates heat like a furnace, and with each beat, grows just a little bit larger as his greater dao morphs with his soul. He’s been waiting for so long, and it’s almost here.

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  Finally.

  He takes the chisel and presses it against the shell of bone, manifesting a hammer in his right hand he slams down and chips off a piece. A pain he cannot describe courses through him, enveloping all of who he is.

  That is the sacrifice with cultivation, you won’t get very far if you aren’t willing to suffer, it’s the first lesson they teach the children when they arrive in the sect, pushing them as hard as they do through the exercises.

  But which would be crueler, to be gentle, or to deprive them of the progress they so deserve?

  He takes the chisel and pushes it into the small indent he’s made in the shell, swinging the hammer once again and digging deeper. Every strike is agony, and he can feel his physical body being torn apart as he stands here and chips away at his soul.

  Jorin the guillotine, that was once his title, back when he toured the battlefields of Rikidan decades ago. He was quite popular, consistently ripping off the heads of worthy foes and presenting them to the presiding general.

  It was a different time back then, a time where he relished in the violence because it was all he had, and oh how proficient he was at violence. He slaughtered foes multiple realms above him, because of tenacity or ferocity he does not know, but his fists always prevailed in the end.

  It was a time of glory.

  It was a time of blood.

  It was a time of suffering.

  The chisel digs deeper into the hole, reaching the fleshy portion of his soul, he brings his hammer down again. His heart clenches, he’s dangerously close to going too far, but that’s okay, he’ll recover in the end.

  He always does.

  Now he teaches children in a sect whose name is only remembered in imperial ledgers, only tasting true violence once every decade when the GodBeasts rage and send the lesser creatures into a frenzy.

  But even then he finds no enjoyment, because behind him are the precious lives of his students. He has witnessed so many of them die, often due to his inaction or those of the elders, but what is he to do?

  There is no compromise with the path, they will provide only the aid that grants a chance at survival, not guarantee. He used to subscribe to this philosophy, after all his journey was fraught with significantly more perils than these children, sheltered as they are in a sect.

  He imagines the disciples of the greater sects know nothing of true danger, sitting behind their grand walls in their grandiose cities.

  Is he bitter?

  Perhaps.

  -

  Rokun watches as small flakes of snow fall gently from the sky and intermingle with the mist radiating from his body, eventually reaching and adding to the sheet of death that covers these lands. He likes snow, and has to travel deep into barbarian lands to be graced with its embrace.

  Unfortunately one such as him has a tendency to attract attention.

  “Zanzibar,” Rokun sighs, and the sound of windchimes pervades the space, “It has been centuries, when will we end this petty game?”

  “When I win,” Zanzibar grunts, it is an inverted thing of strange origin.

  He moves his rook two spaces forward as a cavalcade of barbarians cheer him on, whooping and howling for their king.

  Rokun moves his bishop.

  “Checkmate,” he says, “again.”

  Zanzibar growls in frustration, staring at the board as though it would lay bare its secrets, and the surrounding barbarians collectively let out a groan. This is his seven thousandth and eighty first win, compared to his lack of losses he has thoroughly destroyed the notion that the barbarian king could be in possession of a brain.

  “Again!” Zanzibar barks.

  “No,” Rokun sighs, “I came here to enjoy the scenery, not to deal with your continuously dwindling ego, I've already been quite generous with my time.”

  “But we only played fifty games!”

  “Fifty is more than enough for you, your regalness.”

  “C’mon Rokun, don’t be like that, this is one of the few times I actually get to enjoy myself rather than having to deal with the buffoonery that comes with being king of this lot. Couldn't entertain me some more, for old times sake?”

  “Those ‘old times’ involved a lot of you killing me.”

  “They were glorious battles, each and every one of them! Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the wonderful violence we enacted on these lands.”

  Rokun scoffs, “not when I end up dead.”

  “Oh stop being a crybaby, the glory of it all was more than enough recompense.”

  “I don’t care for glory.”

  Zanzibar grunts, “never understood that.”

  “Likely you never will, not so long as your mentality is stuck in these lands. Everywhere else glory and honor are just words touted when it’s convenient.”

  Zanzibar manifest’s a barrel of ale that rivals him in size, and that’s saying a lot considering the man boasts a height of eight feet, he manifests two mugs as well, handing one to Rokun.

  “At least join me for a drink?”