That night, snugly tucked into a shallow cave and roasting a brace of rabbits over the fire, Tian repeated his question. “Really, Grandpa. Why do we keep getting attacked? Even the rabbits attacked us.”
It’s an… unexpected side effect of combining the Stormborne Truffle and Dustless Lotus in the context of a body reconstruction. Basically, you smell amazing. To herbivores you smell like a delicious fresh flower or fruit, and to carnivores, well, they can’t really distinguish between a truffle and meat. And other things that truffles smell like. So pretty much everything is coming to check out what smells so good. And eat it. If you are lucky.
“What was that you said?”
What?
“You said something.”
I say a lot of things. Your rabbit is going to burn, by the way.
Tian yelped and lifted the stick off the fire. “How long is this going to last for? I can’t go around getting attacked by animals all the time.”
Never seen someone complain about free food so much before. And I don’t think it will last forever. As you cultivate and progress your body will keep developing. It will undergo more refinements. You will lose the smell gradually. It might even go away on its own after a while, as the energy from the bath fades away.
Tian nodded thoughtfully, and wondered about what they would do next. He still had a vague sense of the junkyard being ‘home,’ but it was already a faint feeling and fading fast. After just two weeks, he was already convinced that the forests were better. He could use fires, since he didn’t have to hide from human eyes here. There was way more, and better, food. Plus unlimited building materials in the form of strong trees, leaves, vine, bark, clay… the forest was a treasure trove! It would be easy as anything to live through the wet season here.
Comparatively. He vividly remembered being buried for three days after a garbage pile slid over where he was sleeping. He lost more than a layer of skin crawling out of that. He nearly drowned. Never again. A reminder that even the discarded trash of the human world was enough to kill him. And would kill him. Not because they hated him specifically, it’s just how humans were. Rock throwers.
Tian ripped a bit of meat off the rabbit. It was wonderfully savory. He was so hungry, he’d have no problem eating both rabbits. It was a wonderful night. Not too hot, not too cold, the bugs weren’t bothering him, he had a full belly and somewhere comfortable and dry to sleep. Grandpa was here with him. What could be better than this?
“Grandpa? Do we really need to go to the sect? My body is fixed now, right? So even if it’s a really bad cultivation method-”
Don’t even joke. No, if you really want to feel strong and see the world, you need cultivation. If you want to make sure the rock throwers can’t hurt you- cultivation. This world needs saving, Tian. The Mad God needs killing. You have been lucky so far, and you are strong for a mortal, but sooner or later, the heavens will send something you cannot escape. So. You know. Cultivation.
“How do we get into the sect then? Without the humans killing us?”
We will find out the specifics once we get to the foot of the mountain. But generally? Step one, figure out how locals dress, step two, steal you some clothes, step three, you observe local customs enough that you don’t come off as a demon possessing a corpse, which all things considered is a little too close to the truth for comfort, and, four, probably join some kind of criminal organization long enough to build up familiarity with the area and secure some kind of foothold in the city.
“I feel like there was a lot going on in that answer, Grandpa.”
That’s because you are a very smart boy. Tian felt grandpa tousling his hair, even though his long black hair didn’t so much as twitch.
“What’s a criminal organization?”
I’m going to have to explain laws to you, aren’t I?
“You said laws are a cultivation method, right?”
Yes. But also, in this specific case, no. But also kind of yes. New rule- the correct answer to any and every question is ‘it’s complicated.’ Let's get into it.
It was a really good night.
A few days later, he reached the edge of the forest. His body had filled out remarkably thanks to all the meat he was eating. He was laying in the dirt, looking across rice paddies to some small huts.
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“These are farmers?”
Yep. Peasants. Serfs, maybe.
“What’s the difference?”
A peasant has a right to use a bit of land and, after paying the rent and any taxes, they can keep the profits. In theory, they can leave their plot of land. Peasants often dream of their kids leaving the land and working in town or something. A serf doesn’t have the right to dream. They are a fixture of the land, and essentially property. Not quite outright slaves, but it’s often a distinction without a difference.
“Grandpa, I didn’t understand any of that.”
Lucky you. Just hang out here and watch. We won’t be stealing clothes from them. They won’t have anything to spare.
Tian spent the day at the border of the woods, just watching the family below. It was utterly alien- five people, all working together. Nobody throwing rocks. They did mysterious things in the rice paddies, chased ducks around, they were even talking to each other. Some were small, just a little bigger than him, while others were what Tian thought of as “full sized.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Tian muttered.
I know. But you have time.
Two months after Tian left the forest, he queued up outside the door of the town’s only temple.
The town was called West Town. He had overheard that there were quite a lot of towns scattered around the mountain. West Town town was clean, with paved roads and small houses. Whitewashed plaster walls, terracotta tile roofs, long gutters next to the paved streets to carry the monsoon water to the reservoirs and paddies outside of town.
Tian was pretty shocked the first time he saw people riding horses. How could that work? A human and an animal working together, touching each other? One not eating the other? He got used to it eventually. He crouched in a dark corner and watched a man beat his horse with a whippy stick. The way humans ‘worked’ with other species was to beat them into submission.
It was an ugly feeling, only made worse when he hid behind a parked wagon and watched a beautifully dressed man die because another beautifully dressed man glared at them and tore a little piece of paper. The man who died didn’t leave an intact corpse. His head quite literally fell off.
Cultivators, Tian. Grandpa isn’t pushing you to do this for no reason. That guy, the killer? Isn’t even a cultivator. He just bought a charm or a talisman paper from someone. Probably a defective product. A real one would require strong vital energy or qi to activate, and be much more powerful.
The people wore linen trousers and long tunics, without much distinction between the genders. Women tended to carry a short, curved knife on a rope around their necks. Men carried a longer knife tucked into a waist sash. Men wore their hair long and up, women kept it short and shaved intricate patterns into the stubble. Tian was relieved he had long hair. All he had to do was figure out how men twisted it around and pinned it in place. He didn’t quite manage it.
The food was good. Tian noticed that straight away. The food in the town was really good. The vegetables tasted better, the meat tasted better than what he hunted, and Grandpa had been right about rice- rice was bland but delicious at the same time. You put some meat or vegetables on top of the rice and every bite became amazing.
Feeding himself meant learning how to steal. West Town wasn’t very big. New faces were spotted and distrusted immediately. Still, Tian was small for his age and very patient. If he couldn’t hide behind a corner, he would hide on a roof, or in a rafter, or under a garbage pile.
It wasn’t hard for the occasional half a cabbage to vanish, or a few scoops of rice to disappear from the back of an inn. Money was a little harder to come by, but once he discovered the joy of stealing from public bathhouses, he was able to gather a few coppers. Not that he spent them. He didn’t want to talk to rock throwers.
Tian still looked like a homeless kid dressed in rags, but at least he had rags. Tian considered that solid progress. Grandpa had insisted he also steal soap, which he reluctantly used. It’s not like he liked being dirty. It was just his normal state of being. So why worry?
People are a lot nicer to clean kids than dirty ones, and cuter kids have the most leeway. You don’t know how to be cute, so you will just have to be clean.
Tian didn’t argue. Grandpa was clearly right- he saw parents forcibly scrubbing yelling kids all the time.
The whole town was run by the Temple. This was, Tian learned, merely a local temple, affiliated with the monastery up on the mountain. That being said, the degree of actual management by the Temple itself seemed light. He never saw anyone affiliated with the Temple, at any rate. It didn’t bother the townsfolk. They were proud to have a Temple in town.
Cultivators, again. If you know that the people who control your town could exterminate an army with a raised eyebrow, stop floods with a flick of a hand and cure pestilence with a hum, you too would be very loyal. Being a mortal is hard. Damned hard. And only getting harder.
“Why’s that, Grandpa?”
Short answer? Mad God. Slightly longer answer? Leaving aside your feelings about humans, would you say this is a nice place to live? For them, anyway?
Tian shrugged and nodded. It was nicer than the villages, and the villages were nicer than the dump, so if you were willing to live with other humans, it was a good place.
This place is run by what would be called… I don’t know, righteous cultivators? Orthodox? Saint Path? Something like that. They usually frame themselves with something pretty broad and positive sounding. That way, if you are against them, you are automatically the bad guy.
“Why?”
They think in oppositional dualities a lot. Hot-cold, man-woman, day-night, that kind of thing. And they have a good reason to. You will learn about this very, very quickly in the Sect. Anyway, if they are good, then the other side must be bad. There is no third option. They probably aren’t quite that rigid in practice, but I guarantee it’s how their instincts work.
Since there are ‘good’ orthodox cultivators here, then the bad ones must be around too.
Tian lived in the town for two months, studying the locals. Trying to learn their rock thrower ways. Even in town, they threw rocks at him. Not all the time, but more than once. With Grandpa’s strong encouragement, and the comfort of the stolen food, he endured.
The local Temple opened its doors once every four months to let people come and test themselves, to see if they had any fate with cultivation. The requirements were that low. If they had any fate with cultivation whatsoever, they could apply to join the Temple. If not, oh well. Such is life.
Parents usually brought their kids here when they were ten. It was, apparently, a good age to start cultivating or learning a trade. Nobody really expected their kids to be cultivators, but wouldn’t they be fools if they didn’t at least check?
Fortunately for the parents, it was free. Once someone cultivated immortality, even their chickens and dogs would ascend, probably. Parents could expect at least a hundred years of good health and easy living, right? It kept the kids out of their hair for the morning, and they usually came back more willing to help out with the family businesses. That’s good. And besides, it was free! Free!
Tian tried to figure a way to break in, but Grandpa loudly explained why that was both stupid and suicidal. Having no other option, he lined up with the other kids at the very last moment. The other kids gave him plenty of room. Nobody wanted to be near the homeless kid. Their parents had warned them about it repeatedly. Being a bum was contagious.
A heavy bronze bell was struck nine times, and the wooden gate of the Temple opened. Tian smiled a little. Time to see what this cultivation thing was all about.