Unintended Cultivator

While Sen knew that he could activate his qinggong technique or fly himself on a qi platform to get back to the mostly destroyed sect compound, he couldn’t seem to rouse the ambition. He’d been focused and even domineering with Yunhan and Liwen, but he’d done that out of pure, brutal, unadulterated necessity. Now, there was no necessity to drive him to do anything. The Twisted Blade Sect was no more. Whatever survivors that had been left in the compound were either dead or fleeing for the perceived safety of that golden land called anywhere else. There were still the libraries to sweep clean and alchemical components to claim. Whatever urgency he’d felt about those things before felt distant and held no power to compel him to increase his speed.

He just walked. It wasn’t even the miles-consuming pace of a cultivator. He walked as he had walked as a younger and much cleaner man on the streets of Orchard’s Reach. Whatever filth he'd carried then could be washed away with water. He feared washing himself clean of this would take things more profound and deeds more profoundly difficult than standing in the rain or jumping in a river. As his slow steps carried him to and through the gaping hole in the compound wall, that same sense of hollowness he’d felt in the aftermath of Elder Mu’s death threatened to overtake him. It was all-consuming and seemed to bleed the color and vibrancy out of everything. Every motion felt like it took twice the energy it should.

He stopped when he found Glimmer of Night. The spider had either taken everything he wanted already or hadn’t wanted anything at all. Instead of picking through the handful of standing buildings, he was making massive webs that covered huge portions of the sect’s grounds. Sen watched the work for a while, uncaring about how long he stood there. Glimmer of Night eventually came over and spoke to him. Sen didn’t really register the words, but he felt his mouth open and words fell out. They must have been coherent enough to satisfy the low bar of spider social interaction because Glimmer of Night returned to his web project. Sen made a huge mental effort and walked deeper into the sect. He found Falling Leaf sitting on a large rock that didn’t look like it had always been there. She was scowling at what looked like a cultivation manual. The sight was jarring enough that it brought Sen back to his senses.

“What are you glaring at that manual?” he asked.

She looked up at him, her face brightening for a moment before the scowl returned. She shook the manual in a way that made Sen want to cringe a little.

“Because this is foolishness,” she declared. “No wonder human cultivators are all mad.”

Sen frowned. Manuals could be obtuse at times. He’d seen that himself. Even so, he had to wonder if this was Falling Leaf applying ghost panther logic to human cultivation. He walked over and sat on the rock next to her. He held out his hand. Falling Leaf seemed almost eager for him to take it.

“Yes. Look! Look at the insanity!” she almost shouted.

He didn’t even have a chance to open the manual himself before she lost patience and did it for him. She pointed emphatically at the first page. Mentally shrugging, he read the first page. At least, he thought he did. The manual did contain words. He knew them all. They had just been arranged in a way that seemed designed to aggravate anyone who expected words arranged together to have coherent meanings. Maybe I didn’t read it closely enough, he thought. I’m not at my best right now. Shaking his head, he started over. After he finished his second read, and then his third through the first page, he started scowling at the manual.