Unintended Cultivator

Chan Dishi once again contemplated the benefits and pitfalls of abandoning the capital and heading north. By all accounts, Judgment’s Gale was building himself a stronghold up there and taking in wayward cultivators. I could be wayward, thought Chan Dishi. It’s not like I’ve got some commitment to a sect. I haven’t sworn any oaths to the king. He could just collect what he was owed and leave. It might create some hard feelings, but the king had more pressing problems than one cultivator coming or going. Little things like the kingdom shredding into pieces all around him and the very real possibility of an assassination attempt. It might have been an even bigger disaster if it was only happening in this kingdom. Weakness did invite invasion, after all. Yet, it seemed the madness was everywhere they could get word from.

The biggest benefit of fleeing north was that he’d be in the company of people he knew were powerful, and some he at least suspected were terrifyingly powerful. If nothing else, it would increase his odds of survival. He doubted Lu Sen would turn him away. They’d left things on good terms, and Chan Dishi had a lot to offer someone like that. He wasn’t a nascent soul cultivator, but he was a potent core cultivator with a lot of eclectic experience behind him. He would prove at least adequate at managing paperwork or leading others into battle. He could be counted on to reliably finish assigned work. It might not be as fast or as brilliant as someone else could do it, but fast, brilliant people were notoriously unreliable. Reliability often trumped talent in times of crisis.

Yes, he’d give himself very good odds of being accepted into the fold of whatever kind of academy, sect, or cult it was that the Hand of Chaos was building up there. Just as importantly, Lu Sen had actually taken the fight to the enemy. People willing to do that were in desperately short supply these days. Most people were looking for a wall to cower behind. Chan Dishi didn’t even blame the mortals for that. Aside from the army, few mortals had the necessary skills or training to fight even weak spirit beasts. Finding a wall to hide behind was probably the smartest choice those people could make. Unfortunately, Chan Dishi knew what cost that was coming at, since he was constantly leaning on a wall during boring meetings like the one happening at that very moment.

“Your majesty, we must cut the rations for the refugees,” pled some functionary whose name Chan Dishi never bothered to learn.

“You suggest we should starve them slowly?” asked Jing in a lethally cold voice.

The functionary shrank back from that tone but persevered.

“Your majesty, if we don’t cut the rations, there won’t be enough to feed them through the winter. If more refugees come in, even cutting the rations might not be enough.”

Chan Dishi watched the king close his eyes and take a steadying breath. The man looked exhausted in body and soul. He was constantly pale, and there were pouches under his eyelids so dark they looked like two crescent bruises. His hair was graying at an astonishing rate. Even if we all do somehow manage to survive this war, I bet he’ll die a good ten or twenty years faster than he would have, thought Chan Dishi. While sympathetic to the king’s plight, there wasn’t much that he could do about it. He could fend off assassins if they ever came, but he couldn’t provide the king with the thing he really needed. True power. It had always been a fact of life that mortal royal families were only, at best, in charge of the mortals in their respective territories. Fighting this war required someone who could bring mortals and cultivators to heel. There just weren’t that many people in the world who could reasonably pull that off.

They existed. Every now and then, a new story about Fate’s Razor or the Living Spear would crop up. Cultivator myths like that could achieve that goal if they were of a mind to do it. Of course, they were also legendarily disinterested in mortal affairs and even the affairs of the sects. When they did intervene, it almost always meant that some sect or kingdom was being relegated to the annals of history, so he saw it as a mixed blessing that they weren’t getting involved. At least, he did at first. Now, though, he would welcome them with open arms, shower them with liquor, and fetch them any damn thing they pleased if meant that someone would take charge. There were a few other nascent soul cultivators out there that styled themselves in the same mold, but their continued failure to act put the lie to that posturing. All of that served as additional motivation to pack up and leave.