Unintended Cultivator

Bahn Huizhong considered himself a worldly man. True, he had been a member of the Vermillion Blade Sect for most of his life, but he’d always held a dim view of those cultivators who cloistered themselves away and avoided any task that took them beyond the walls of the sect. He didn’t understand those people. The world was vast and with that vastness came opportunity if one was swift and wise enough to seize it. Unlike the majority that he entered the sect with in his youth so very long ago, he had taken every opportunity to leave the sect. He had taken on missions no one wanted to places he’d never heard of just to see what was there.

Usually, it was a village with some minor spirit beast that was destroying crops or eating livestock. Not much of a challenge for him but the villagers were always grateful, and he’d never been one to turn down a warm meal. He had turned down most of the warm beds, though. He enjoyed those activities as much as anyone else, but looking like a young man and being a young man were very different things. He had, however, availed himself of some willing widows along the way. He felt that they were experienced enough to know what they wanted, which meant he wouldn’t be taking advantage of them. Every so often, though, he’d find himself doing something exciting. He smiled as he thought of that hotheaded youth who had more courage than talent, to say nothing of wisdom. That young man had battled demonic cultivators, hunted spirit beasts far too powerful for him, fought duels of honor, and generally been lucky to survive.

With that excitement came the opportunities. A natural treasure he never would have found if he hadn’t been tracking some spirit beast. A burst of insight in the midst of a pitched battle. A moment of enlightenment while looking at some vista that no one else had ever seen because it was so far into the wilds that only he dared go there. The truth was that he’d been more of a wandering cultivator than a member of the sect for a long time. He’d be gone for months or years at a time, sometimes on tasks for the sect and sometimes pursuing some opportunity he’d stumbled across. It had been lonely at times but that was as much a part of cultivation as cycling patterns. If you couldn’t learn to cope with loneliness, you had no business trying to reach the pinnacle.

In the early decades, he’d return to find that he’d once more outpaced his old comrades. As decades turned to centuries, he’d return to discover that he’d outlived more old friends who had gotten stuck at a bottleneck. He’d climbed the ranks of the sect almost by accident. He found that the low-level missions he’d once taken and loved were replaced with missions to visit other sects or cities because he’d grown too powerful for anything else. That had been a blow. He started to take on disciples as much to relieve the boredom as anything else, and time had started to slip through his fingers. That old drive, that need to progress, had dwindled until only a tiny spark remained, hidden so far down inside him that even he hadn’t known it was there.

He had gotten old, or so he believed, and expected to die within a handful of centuries. It was with that in mind that he took on Li Yi Nuo as what he expected to be his last student. She was an odd girl, so full of talent and an equal amount of self-doubt. She was bright and cheerful one minute, melancholy the next. She was so different from him but perhaps someone he could help. He didn’t believe anyone else in the sect would have the patience to guide her. She was too mercurial to be obedient the way most masters wanted. So, he’d taken her under his wing. He’d been a poor protector to her, though.

That bitch, Elder Jeong, had set her sights on Li Yi Nuo, and he’d been too old, too weak, to stand against her. Or so he thought. He’d been surprised to discover that he was wrong. He barely remembered executing the woman after she tried to send Li Yi Nuo off on a mission with no resources and no expectation of success or survival. He just remembered that spark, that tiny little spark buried so deep down inside of him, bursting to life, filling him with the same fire and drive that made him so reckless in his youth and so potent in the long centuries after. He’d felt long-dormant power swell inside of him. It was only when he’d held that bitch’s severed head in his hand and cowed every other elder in the sect that he realized he might not be quite finished with his journey yet.

Then Li Yi Nuo had returned from her mission with almost unbelievable tales of a madman who summoned tribulation lightning, brought nine tail foxes to heel, and battled devils to a standstill. A man who thought nothing of building formations that stretched for miles and gave away healing potions of such value that it beggared the imagination. He’d scarcely been able to credit the tales, save for the sure knowledge that the girl wouldn’t lie to him and the evidence of his own eyes. He had held those potions in his hand. It had been like holding a miracle. When she had shown him the letter of introduction to Kho Jaw-Long, he had again been inclined to disbelieve, but was it any more unbelievable than anything else she had said?

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