67 – Story Time
“Will she be alright?” I ask as the healer from the Wansheng sect treats the unconscious Hanmei. Within the room watching the treatment was me, Wendao, Huiran, and Ningguang. Wanxia is left to recover in her own room. I asked as the healer from the Wànshēng Sect treated the still-unconscious Hanmei. Inside the room watching the treatment were me, Wendao, Huiran, and Ningguang. Wanxia had been left to recover in her own room.
Hanmei’s condition was worse than I had expected. A large gash ran across her left arm, the flesh already blackened and emitting dark smoke, with purple veins spreading outward from the corrupted area. Multiple needles, each radiating some form of Qi, had been placed across her left arm, shoulder, and chest. The thick scent of incense filled the room. To me, the whole setup still looked uncomfortably close to quack medicine. But I already knew better that things worked differently here.
“The poison… it is also imbued with a very strong curse.” The healer said, sweat dripping down her face. “I need a monk to help me treat her. The most I can do right now is stop the poison from spreading further through her body.”
“What? Why do you need a monk?”
“The poison itself is relatively easy to treat. The curse, however, is actively devouring her Qi to maintain the poison’s potency. I need a monk to purify the curse before I can safely deal with the poison.” the healer explained.
“So just that?” I moved to Hanmei’s bedside. If creating a small sun had worked earlier, I didn’t see why this wouldn’t. I took her left hand between both of mine and tried channeling my Merit Essence while silently praying that it would work.
A bright, warm light erupted from my hands, flooding the entire room. When the light gradually faded, the blackened flesh had clearly receded. When the healer still didn’t resume her work, I looked up at her, only to find that everyone in the room was staring at me.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Right. My apologies.” She snapped out of her stupor and immediately returned to Hanmei’s side. I stepped back to give her space.
The healer resumed her work with renewed focus. She removed the old needles and placed new ones in a different arrangement. Then, with another needle, she pricked the tip of Hanmei's finger. Blood carrying a sickly stench and corrupted Qi slowly but steadily drained from her body. At the same time, the healer carefully dressed the wound. Both processes finished almost simultaneously.
“That’s everything I can do for now. She should wake within a week.” the healer concluded, before glancing at me somewhat shyly.
She then cupped her hands and bowed. “I apologize for my wrongful assumptions about you.”
“Which assumption? That I was a demon, or that I was a Xuan?” I asked.
“Both.” she answered after a brief silence.
“Forgiven. I haven’t exactly done much good these past months. It wasn’t even really an option.” I replied honestly.
“Come to think of it, my temper has flared a few times already.” I added, recalling what I had just done outside the inn. “I wasn’t exactly a temperamental person before.”
“It’s Killing Intent accumulation.” Wendao answered. The healer nodded in agreement.
“A what now?”
“It’s something that grows with every kill. A kind of momentum,” Wendao explained. “It sharpens your focus in battle. But if you kill too much and let it accumulate unchecked, it begins to affect your mind. Short temper, treating killing as the first solution… and eventually, insanity.”
“Oh, fuck. How do I manage that, then?” I asked, genuinely concerned.
Wendao studied me for a moment before answering. “I’d say you already did. Just the way you handled it a moment ago.”
“What? By praying just now?” He nodded.
I thought about it for a moment. I guessed it was a good thing my faith could still help me here. I have done and can do more good.
“Now come on, let’s leave Sister Hanmei to rest. I’m famished.” Huiran said, stepping to the front.
He led us out of the room. “Moving on from that. You never told me you are practicing buddhist cultivation, brother!”
“It doesn’t exactly follow Buddhist cultivation.” I explained. “I’m following something called the Arhat Path, but I still hold to the faith from my homeworld. Apparently it’s quite different from Buddhism here, even though we share similar virtues.” That only seemed to surprise them further.
“The Arhat Path? Really? Are you insane?” Huiran asked again.
“Is it that surprising?”
“Of course it is! That path completely abandons the standard cultivation methods. Rising in cultivation level depends entirely on one’s own enlightenment and achievements,” Huiran replied, this time with clear awe.
“Well, it can’t be that hard, right?” The awe immediately turned into sideways stares. “I mean, I’ve already risen one level, though I don’t exactly know why or how.”
“That’s precisely the problem with the Arhat Path. Only an insane person would leave their entire cultivation progress up to chance like that.” Huiran explained.
We finally reached the first floor and approached the receptionist.
“A room for three, please.” Huiran requested first. I guessed multi-bed rooms weren’t exactly the norm here.
“There’s no problem, I assume?” I leaned forward slightly over him. The receptionist nodded quickly and processed our rooms in a mild panic.
“Are we finally going to eat?” I asked, remembering how many places had turned us away that afternoon.
“You bet we are. After your little stunt outside, if they refuse to serve us now this establishment would lose face.” Huiran said as he sat at one of the larger round tables. Wendao and Ningguang followed. I moved the small chair aside and projected a sitting cushion for myself. The atmosphere in the inn had clearly calmed down, and the place was no longer as packed as before.
A waiter approached to take our order, carefully keeping a safe distance from me. Just like back in Jinchuan, I projected a bowl sized appropriately for me, along with a similarly large tall glass.
“Fill this bowl with noodles. Make it salty, with plenty of eggs and meat.” I handed over the massive bowl, which looked enormous in the waiter’s hands. Another waiter quickly came to help. Then I gave them the glass. “And fill this with lukewarm tea, with plenty of sugar.”
One waiter balked at the order while the others on the table visibly cringed. As they left, Ningguang offered the sun in its jar back to me.
“Keep it.” I said curtly. “It’s better in your hands for the extra reassurance.”
“W-wh… I can’t keep something so precious.” Ningguang said, clearly flustered.
“It is precious, but not as much as you think. At least not back in my homeworld.” I pointed at the small sun inside the jar, comparing it in my mind to the nuclear cells I once had. “I had about… two of these back home. Smaller and better made, but even as a mortal I could still own a couple of them.”
“What do you use that for?” Wendao asked.
“One to power my home, and another to power the illusion array for my games,” I answered honestly. Technically I’d had four of them back when I worked as a trucker, if you counted the truck and the government subsidy. Huiran and Wendao simply nodded along, clearly deciding I came from a very strange place. Well, the feeling was mutual.
“So keep it,” I told Ningguang. “I insist.”
“But isn’t that part of your projection, brother? Will it vanish on its own?” Huiran asked an important question.
I rested my chin on my hand. Huiran had raised a good point. A projection was, in essence, a kind of illusion. Yet through my senses it was clear that the bus still existed even without my direct input and so did the sun inside the jar.
“Can I see it again real quick?” Ningguang quickly placed the sun jar back in my hands, and I inspected it carefully.
“Hmmm.” I hummed thoughtfully. I couldn’t sense any of my Qi being spent to maintain it. Technically I could dispel it and recover the Qi, but I didn’t get the feeling that this particular projection would disappear anytime soon.
“Well?” Huiran asked, curiosity clear in his voice.
“Is there any case where a spell can become self-sustaining?” I asked him.
“You mean like an advanced array formation?” Huiran asked in return.
“Something like that. I get the feeling that this projection has the same lifespan as the little sun inside it. It’s as if the projection produces more power than it consumes just to maintain its form. Assuming it works similar to an RTG, the lifespan of this sun jar would be around… ten to twenty years, give or take.”
Then another thought struck me. Just like with the Divine Fog and my clones, I could practically reabsorb spent Qi. I didn’t know the exact efficiency of reabsorbing my projections, but didn’t that theoretically mean I could create my own Qi batteries?
“Brother,” Huiran said more seriously this time. “Would you mind telling us if you’re about to say something dangerous?”
“Hmm? What?” I looked back at him. Wendao and Ningguang wore the same serious expressions. Only then did I notice a faint bubble surrounding our table, something to keep the conversation private.
“Right. My apologies.” I returned the sun jar to Ningguang, who accepted it with clear reluctance. I guessed it really was considered quite precious here.
“Nevertheless, at this point this sun jar is little more than an overglorified light and heater. I doubt it could power anything significant without disappearing quickly,” I said. The others nodded, and Huiran dispelled the privacy bubble.
“While we wait for our meal, brother, why don’t you tell us more about where you came from?” Huiran asked with genuine curiosity. “It sounds like an exciting place where people can put suns in jars.”
I could feel Wendao and Ningguang growing quiet, and even the rest of the dining hall seemed to settle down to listen.
“It’s nothing particularly exciting, mind you. At least not where I lived. I mean, if I hadn’t been transported here, I would’ve just been a mortal who finished a literature education and gotten posted to some dead-end government job. But I guess we can have a little story time.”
“Here’s how the Great United States of America came to be. Let’s see…” I tried to recall the history I had once read.
“It was the year 1154, counted from the year our God was born. Roughly a generation after the First Crusade had reclaimed the Holy Land and vanquished the heretics. Letters arrived from a merchant ship that had sailed into uncharted waters, trying to avoid overland taxes, and instead discovered an entirely new continent.
“More letters followed. They spoke of a harrowing culture and a vast empire that ruled there. People who skinned women, offered human sacrifices atop great ziggurats, and practiced slavery of the cruelest kind. Whether every claim was true can no longer be verified. What mattered was that the empires of the Old World, still galvanized by their overwhelming victory in the First Crusade, launched the Second.
“If even a single iota of what these letters claimed is true,
then it is the duty of us Christians to uphold justice.
Let us set sail and eradicate these demonic practices from the face of our God’s earth.
~ Thus spoke Emperor Belisarius the Third of Rome.”
“Then, like the Iliad of old, the seas themselves seemed to darken beneath the weight of a thousand keels.
I projected a map of Europe, followed by the vast fleet sailing westward. Countless ships bearing different designs and flying a myriad of coats of arms.
Prince Richard the Lionheart led the vanguard, his banners snapping like thunder as more than half his kingdom’s might followed him into the unknown. Behind him sailed the five princes of Spain, their newly reclaimed crowns gleaming with righteous fire. The three kings of the North Sea Kingdoms came next, their longships cutting through the waves like wolves of the deep. France, Germany, and Kievan Rus followed in their wake, a living tide of steel and faith.”
“And then came Rome.” I projected the vast fleet of Rome.
“Twelve full legions. An army that equaled all the others combined. Their fleet stretched across the horizon like a second continent of wood and sail, the eagles of the Empire gleaming under the sun as they advanced to deliver judgment upon a new world.
“When that great host finally made landfall, the war that followed was as swift as it was absolute. The combined might, equaling twenty-four kingdoms and more descended upon the continent. The practices of that empire had earned them few allies, and the surrounding tribes quickly rallied under the banner of the Crusade. An empire that had stood for ages was reduced to ash and silence within only a few years. Its ziggurats were toppled, its records burned, and its name erased from the memory of the earth within just a few years.
“After that… things grew messy. The journey between the two continents took half a year by sea, and the new continent had just lost its greatest ruling power. At least half of the crusading armies decided to settle permanently. A few were granted the right to independence, though most were still required to maintain ties with their parent kingdoms.
“It would be another three centuries before all the resulting colonies of America finally broke free from the East, formed their own nations, and then united into the Fifteen Commonwealths. After that, those fifteen commonwealths joined together to form the Great United States of America, the empire of empires!”
I projected an American flag: fifteen stars arranged in a circle on the blue field, with fifteen alternating red and white stripes.
Then I pointed to one particular region on the map. The Lone Star Commonwealth, situated between Nova Roma and the Gulf Commonwealth.
“And I’m from here. The Great Lone Star.”
~ Valarion