“Killing God? What’s God?”
God is the principle that says the world exists, life exists, the universe, the sun, moon, stars, devas and devils dancing in the infinite void, cultivators summoning the wind and rain with a flip of their hand, swords that can cut iron like mud and mud that can bring life to millions- all of that exists because someone made it exist, and it is therefore right and good if that same person gives kids cancer.
“I don’t understand.”
Grandpa Jun sighed. Me either. Stick with saving the world. It’s not much less complicated, but people tend to take it better when you say it out loud.
“And… you are going to save the world?”
No. You are.
“Really?”
It will be hard. Very hard. But I believe in you. After all, you are used to doing very hard things.
Tian nodded. He was used to doing very hard things. Some days, just moving was very hard. Accepting the way his burn scars would pull and tear and weep when he tried to do his exercises was hard. Feeding yourself, that was very hard. Making clothes was hard. Staying dry in the rainy season, staying cool in the hot season, all hard. Even the bugs could be hard to deal with, though he noticed they really didn’t like biting him.
“Can we save the world from the dump?”
Hahaha! Oh Grandson, you have so many amazing things to see and do. We won’t always be in this dump. But while we are weak, it’s a good place to hide out and get stronger.
“It is?”
It is. You know what the scariest thing in the world is? People. They are also some of the best things, but you don’t get the good without the bad. People are very scary, and right now, they are very hostile to you. That means they will attack you on sight.
Tian nodded. They did that.
The poor bastards think… you know what? Not relevant right now. The point is that people will avoid this place and you aren’t likely to suffer unreasonable accidents. The Dump is practically the safest place you could be!
“Unreasonable accidents? What does that mean?”
If you jump on a pile of trash and something slips out from underneath your foot and you fall and hurt yourself, that’s a reasonable accident. Sitting quietly under a pile of garbage and getting struck by some cultivator’s Thousand Refinement Ten Thousand Deaths Arrow of Supreme Annihilation which he only threw into the air as a joke- that would be an unreasonable accident.
“I understand. What's an arrow? And all that? And a cultivator?”
Homeschooling was already on the to-do list. But first- games!
“Games?”
Fun things you can do to make yourself stronger, faster, smarter, more agile, all that good stuff! Trace out what I tell you to draw in the dirt.
Tian followed Grandpa Jun’s instructions, and drew ten circles in the dirt. Grandpa was very particular about where they went.
Alright, now we need to mark each circle with special signs. First go to the leftmost circle and draw a straight line up and down. Then in the next circle-
Grandpa went through all ten. Congratulations, you have just written out the numbers one through ten. You will learn them well as we play the game.
“What’s the game?”
I call a number, and when I do, you jump onto that circle. Easy, right? But the trick is that we sing a song while you jump, and if you forget the song or jump into the wrong circle, you lose and we have to start over. You win if you can get to the end of the song without missing a jump.
“Is this really fun?”
You bet! Let me teach you the song.
It was a silly little song. It was only one short verse with a chorus, all about colors. Tian quickly agreed that it was a fun game, and smiled when Grandpa told him that there were more verses they could sing.
Grandpa Jun knew lots of fun songs and games. There was the dinner game- when the two hunted for food in the trash and then Tian had to find the best not-food things to eat with it. It was a shocking feast- a thousand different flavors to try. The only time Grandpa Jin scolded Tian was when the boy wanted to eat a bit of painted wood.
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“But why Grandpa?”
Because I already fixed your nervous system once, and I’m damned if I’m wasting my thimbleful of energy on fixing it again. No more lead in your diet, you hear me? None!
Other than that scolding, dinners were a lot more fun and a lot more delicious. Then there was building snares and traps. Grandpa knew so many ways to build snares and traps it boggled the mind. He taught Tian how to read the faint game trails that ran through the dump. How to catch fat rats and chubby birds. Tian thought he was already a junkyard predator. Grandpa Jun showed him how to be a much better one.
You should take pride in hunting Tian. You are pitting your whole life against your prey’s. But never let them linger. See how that rat is screaming in pain? Grab a rock and bash its brains out. Safer for you, and kinder for the rat. You can’t eat cruelty, but it can sure eat you.
The games were all really fun too- games about counting, about colors, about how to read strange shapes called ‘characters’ or the stories hidden in the blurry dots of light in the night sky. After it rained, there was the fun “Where does the water go?” investigation, trying to figure out why the puddles in the shade lasted longer than the puddles in the sun, and why some bits of pottery could hold water for days, but others absorbed it all.
Another constant was “Elbows, Knees and Toes,” where Tian would make dots on bits of rotting wood or piles of cloth, then hit it with his elbows, knees or… not actually his toes, but his feet or his shin. Then grandpa combined that with the circle jumping game, and things got very, very complicated, but always very, very fun. He was never bored with Grandpa Jun and all his fun games. Although they did hurt.
“Grandpa, when we do these games, all the crinkly bits of skin pull. It really hurts.”
I know. I’m sorry about that. But you are going to learn that being able to work and fight through the pain is the greatest thing about these games. It will save your life over and over again.
“It will?”
It will. And even if it hurts, aren’t you still having fun?
Tian was. And every time he traded pain for a full belly, he agreed again it was all worthwhile. Throughout it all was the breathing and stretching exercises. Those were mandatory, and nearly constant.
A pagoda of nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine floors is built from the foundation up. And since I’m aiming for more like nine billion or nine trillion floors, we are going to be working on your foundation for a long time.
Tian could count up to ten. Bigger numbers required more explanations. The jumping games got more complicated and the songs got longer, stretching all the way to a hundred circles and dozens of verses. It wasn’t easy to memorize so many things, so Tian had to learn tricks of memorization, mnemonics, making a jumping game in his imagination and writing a verse next to each circle.
It was a happy year. Tian was eating well, moving like a leopard with the muscles of an anaconda. Even better than that, he was in less and less pain.
“I… I don’t know the right words yet, Grandpa. I can’t remember when things didn’t hurt. And now a lot of things that used to hurt, don’t hurt. I… I think I’m smarter now, but that hole where the pain was can’t be filled with my words. I can breathe now.” He spread his hands helplessly.
You have spent the last year transforming trash into medicine inside your body. That’s what Gourmet is for- making you stronger is a happy side effect. Gourmet and the Calisthenics are all about taking what’s toxic and refining it into tonic. Remember how I told you the dirt is filled with animals too small to see, which can promote both sickness and health?
“Yes, and they live together in groups called colonies.”
Yes. It’s why some of the dirt smells really good to you, and some of the dirt smells really bad. You are smelling the good animals, and eating them up. Same thing with the metals and chemicals you have been eating. The stuff isn’t really digestible- zero nutritional value. But thanks to Gourmet, those chemicals can be sent to attack the diseases that were ravaging your body.
“Woah!”
I told you all this before. Many times.
“I know. But it’s still amazing. Grandpa?”
Yes?
“You said that I can’t cultivate, and the people outside the dump are way stronger than me. Why is that? Also, what is cultivation?”
Grandpa Jun was quiet for a moment. Tian knew that Grandpa had to speak carefully. Sometimes he would say the wrong thing and be silent for days. It made Tian not want to ask questions, but Grandpa scolded him and told him that it was the responsibility of his elders to show how not to invite trouble with their mouths. It was the responsibility of the young to learn.
This world has certain rules and principals it operates on. If you combine a certain mix of water, gravel and burnt sea shells, you can make iron mud. That’s a rule. But you can also say it’s a rule that is based on other rules. Like if you have two rocks and add another two rocks you have?
“Four rocks.”
Right. So it is true to say that there are four rocks as a thing that exists in its totality- the four rocks are their own complete and unique thing, and that those four rocks are the inevitable consequence of two sets of two rocks coming together, and that those sets are, themselves, an inescapable conclusion from bringing together four individual rocks. And for that to come true, there must be one rock. And in theory, if you completely understand everything that is part of the totality of the concepts of “one,” “rock,” and “one rock,” you could eventually figure out four rocks. Or any number of rocks.
“Grandpa… I don’t understand any of that.”
It would be weird if you did, honestly. Look, you can eat food, and it keeps you alive. There is energy in the food that lets you do that, stuff for making muscles, blood, all that. And that’s a rule, a Four Rock rule. But under that are more rules and more rules. And one of the big rules, one of those One Rock rules, is that there is an energy that fills the world. Everything touches it and is affected by it.
Cultivation, as most people use the word, is learning how to interact with that powerful energy directly. To incorporate it into you, and use it to make yourself stronger intentionally. Most things, yourself included, are passively affected by it. How much they are affected varies wildly. Even the trash in this dump is affected by the energy.
Tian nodded.
So why are the people outside so much stronger than you? Do you remember I mentioned that you are missing meridians, don’t have a dao bone or a spirit root or any of that? They do have ‘em. Well, just the meridians, they don’t have the other things either. Most of them. Meridians are like blood vessels that interact with the special energy and run it through your body. They are quite mystical- they are both physical and work on the level of that energy.
Even if they can’t properly cultivate, the people around you have a full set of functional meridians. They are reinforced by that energy much more than you are. For now.
“For now?”
Grandpa Jun chuckled. Grandpa had a nice laugh, Tian thought, even if sometimes it sounded a little spooky.
I have thought it through carefully. What you need isn’t incremental improvements, you need a complete body reforging. Your body will be hammered out and improved over and over again. And that, unfortunately, is not something we can do in this dump. We will have to go on our first grand adventure.
“Our first grand adventure? Out of the Dump?”
Exactly! You are now a boy who can survive in harsh conditions. The journey will be very dangerous- most things are going to be stronger than you, faster than you, with better senses than you. But you can survive what others cannot. You can endure. And, if I may say so myself, my Grandson is pretty darn smart! So we will survive.
Tian started squirming. “When do we go?”
Hmm. It’s not like we can prepare much here. We can gather a few useful things and set off tomorrow.
Tian’s eyes opened wide. “So soon?”
Is there anything here that we particularly need?
“What about all the traps, all the snares, the plants we are growing in pots?
We will take the traps apart and leave the plants to their fate. With luck, they will thrive. If not, that was their fate. We, however, will not thrive unless we move.
“So how do we make my body better?”
Remember what I said about the rules beneath the rules? And how that mysterious energy affects everything?
“Yes?”
Well, we just need to get the right stuff, turn it into soup and add you as the final ingredient. And since we aren’t trying to do anything too Heaven-defying, it won’t even be suicidal!
“Err… suicidal?”
Power has its price, my boy. You have already paid part of it. Time to pay off the balance and take what you are owed.