There was a smell to the steppes. Sun on the grass and dry earth and something pungent, almost sweet with a hint of spice. Tian smiled as he took it all in. The green on the rolling land was grass, in its many forms, and mugwort. He had never seen so much mugwort. The little silvery green bushes dotted the grassland and added texture to the rolling green as far as the eye could see. The steppes in late spring were beautiful. Alive, fresh, and beautiful.
There were eagles soaring high above him. Tian cast his senses towards them, but found no trace of qi on them. Ordinary birds. He would have to fulfill an old dream soon; to fly up and look an eagle in the eye as a fellow native to the broad blue sky. For now, he would concern himself with earthly matters.
He let his breath relax, trying to cast away all distracting thoughts with each exhale. The Heavenly perception art was active, but he used it as he would his trusted old Counter-Jumper earthly perception art- passively. Doing nothing but opening himself to the steppes, to the wind between the little spears of grass, and the heat of the sun, and the enduring strength of the earth.
Heaven and earth, and between them, humanity. Tian could see how the ancients came to that conclusion. It seemed so tidy, so self-evidently right. He stretched his perception out, pushing not for distance but range of sensations. Feeling the flow of the air with his qi, feeling the life in the earth. Letting his breath cycle, bringing the sky within him.
He felt the sun moving across the sky, first warming one side of his face, then the other. In and out, the bridge between earth and heaven, the chaotic qi of the world was drawn into his lungs and carefully sorted between the useful and the not useful. Not useless. Just not useful to him. Everything in the world had a purpose, though what it might be was known only to the Dao, and it was believed to be a thing beyond thought or memory.
It was a beautiful world, sometimes. He should really try to remember that.
There was a faint sensation coming from a little to his left. Not a mouse or insect, nor a bird. It wasn’t anything he had experienced before. His senses were telling him that it was a mugwort plant, all spikey leaves and medicinal smell, but there was something else to it as well. A sort of buzzing that tasted like blue smelled.
Tian gasped and tipped over, slamming his hand into the dirt to stop his fall. He pinched the skin between his eyebrows and bent over, trying to ease the vertigo. For some reason, the world was a little blurry, and it wasn’t staying put. He pulled a canteen full of cold green tea from his bag and gulped it down. The tea was still excessively bean-y, but sweeter now, without the bitterness and staleness he had tasted before. Even a mediocre green tea could be rescued, so long as it was used appropriately. Another lesson there.
Was the sun always so bright? It seemed very bright. His eyes stung, and the world was still swaying a bit.
There are a lot of ways mortals, and magicians of all sorts, really, get in touch with the intangible realm. Daoists meditate a lot. There is a whole five step process that you largely skip thanks to having a spirit root. It starts with avoiding certain very common foods, and goes from there. Fasting, meditation, avoiding certain things, people, thoughts, until you empty yourself out enough to transcend mortality. Spiritually, anyway.
Tian didn’t nod. He was a little worried he might fall over, or throw up, or both.
Other religious traditions have their own methods. Some dance past the point of exhaustion. The rhythmic music, combined with the chemicals flooding the body from insane overexertion, causes visions. Singing is a less common method, but I have seen people singing simple, repetitive songs honoring their god as they rock back and forth, losing themselves in the music and the ecstasy of their god’s love. Quite beautiful in its way, if tedious for watchers. They go for days sometimes.
Tian wasn’t a singer. He couldn’t imagine playing his flute for days on end. It sounded awful.
However, the number-one all time champion of the “See the unseeable, know the unknowable” methods is taking drugs. Sacred medicine, narcotics, holy herbs or magic mushrooms, call it what you like. Alcohol too, actually. Often forgotten, but highly popular all the same. The difference between a recreational drug user and a sacred practitioner is not just intent. Preparation plays a huge part too.
Tian felt an old hand slowly rubbing circles on his back. Soothing him. He had treasured that feeling since he was six years old.
Remember, while someone may be operating with less information and different assumptions than you, it doesn’t mean they are stupid. They know that eating something weird and having visions doesn’t mean you are having a genuine revelation of hidden worlds. You need to be trained. You need to have the mental tools to understand and navigate the vision. Sometimes it takes special rituals or spells, or special times of the year. Sometimes you need literal passwords and talismans to get past various divine guards. It varies depending on the tradition. I think you can see where I am going with this.
Tian could. He hadn’t taken any medicine, nor had he trained for seeing the unseeable and unknowable. Not beyond what he did normally, at any rate. Grandpa Jun had the damnedest knack of forcing him to look at ordinary things and see how unordinary they were.
Vertigo couldn’t stop the little choking half-laugh. “I meditate to see and understand the things I was trained to see and understand. Trying to force myself to see and understand things that fall outside of that just looks like nonsense, and makes me sick too. Though I’d swear there was something special about that mugwort plant over there. No idea what.”
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He forced his eyes open, and squeezed the tiny muscles until his eyes managed to focus on the herb. In his now extensive experience gathering herbs, it looked ordinary. The amount of qi it held might be marginally higher than the other plants around it, but it was still within the range of normal for mortal plants. He wouldn’t even rate it as an Earthly herb.
A shaman would find a mugwort spirit there. Ordinary in one sense, special in another. They would probably make an offering, then harvest it and save it for serious medicine. The world shamans live in is intensely alive. Ordinary things may be holy, or dangerous, or simply powerful.
Which is why the tribal kings tolerated them. They were the specialists, trained in managing affairs of that ghostly world. Tian carefully, slowly, shook his head. Not ghostly. That suggested things were dead. Shamans were trained to confront that layer of the world that was painted on the sheet of paper above or below the one the rest of the world existed on.
“That’s why Ma said angry spirits sometimes tore apart shamans. The shamans have to bring the spirits from one layer of the world to another, and to do that, they bring the spirits into themselves. Angry spirits take the chance to get revenge.”
There was a ghostly chuckle. Nobody said the spirits were nice. Or safe. The Yuu have maintained their own culture and traditions despite thousands of years of contact with the more settled kingdoms. That’s not just stubbornness. They did it for practical reasons. It works. They don’t need sects, or monasteries, or special qi dense lands. And some of those spirits are very, very strong indeed.
“The whole world is their cultivation grounds. Everything is their medicines, their weapons and armor.” Tian breathed the words out slowly, marveling at the strangeness of it all. “Well, not everything, but close enough. What a world. What an amazing world. It would work in the Broadsky Kingdom too. It wouldn’t make sense if it was just the steppes. We don’t do it because we have immortality cultivation, and anything that leaves that much power in the hands of commoners would be intolerable to the Emperor.”
Correct. Good thinking. Though you should check out what exactly all the Imperial Departments do. You might be surprised by what you find. Really. Check it out.
“It sounds like you figured something out. Any leads on the Red Horse?” Liren flew down out of the sky, blue robes dancing in the wind.
“More like having a deeper understanding of what the shaman are doing, and why I won’t be copying them any time soon. Not a hint of a lead on the horse. You?”
“Nothing. But why would you want to copy the shamans anyway? You are a notoriously stubborn daoist.”
Tian rotated his head, eyes wide, in an uncanny impression of an owl. “Did you forget that the Grand Shaman was beating the dust off us? He got jumped by two more Heavenly Realm cultivators in the middle of fighting us, took a wound, and still managed to escape. The two people following him haven’t been seen since.”
“Hard to forget, but so what? There are powerful Heavenly Realm cultivators too.”
“Miss Hong… May I call you Liren? Little Liren, that wasn’t some ancient with centuries of cultivation under their belt. It was a sixty year old grandpa who's as mortal as could be.” Tian used his kindest, most exquisitely polite tone. “Steppe grandpa on a horse that looks like it got dipped in a vat of green dye, armed with a bow that has too many bends in it and a fistful of teeth, used shaman magic to, at a minimum, survive a four-on-one.”
Liren rocked back a little. “Hadn’t thought of it that way, but you aren’t wrong. It does raise another question, though.”
Tian nodded. “If it’s that useful, why isn’t everyone doing it? And I figured it out. It’s a lot faster to learn and use than internal alchemy, but it’s not any easier as a path. I have a sneaking suspicion that it makes your life a whole lot harder, in fact, while us Daoists find our lives getting a whole lot easier. I’ll bet you a sweet bun that shamans have a reputation for being a little crazy and useless for anything that isn’t spirit related.”
Liren’s mouth twisted and she rubbed the back of her neck. “You could say the same about me, really. Other than law enforcement, I really don’t have any non-cultivation skills. Painting, I guess? Not like a crafter or a doctor or a… I don’t know, an alchemist.”
“You are infinitely better than an alchemist.” The words came out on reflex, but were sincere. “And, at least as far as being a doctor goes, maternity care. And the diseases of babies and the very elderly… kind of.”
“Pardon?”
“I know practically nothing about taking care of pregnant women, other than what not to feed them. I would not want to assist in delivering a baby without competent supervision. Nor do I know how to treat a baby or an elderly person. They just don’t come up for cultivators. Or… they do, but not often enough for me to be trained on dealing with them.”
Liren sat down next to him with a laugh. “What a useful bunch we are!”
“Don’t forget our number one use- sitting around and making sure nobody gets active.”
“That’s too advanced for little daoists like us. It’s the mighty ones in the Holy Lands with the training and experience to handle sitting around.” Liren radiated magisterial restraint.
“Quite right. My mistake.”
They settled into comfortable silence. A few minutes passed, then Liren reached out her hand. Tian took it, feeling the warmth of her.
“Zihao, are we wasting our time out here? We are looking for a red horse so we can find the people looking for the red horse so we can find the people motivating the people looking for the red horse in the hopes that those people are the bad people we want to kill, not other, more neutral people. I can’t think of a better way to accomplish our mission, but surely there must be one.”
Tian tipped himself over and landed with his head in Liren’s lap. She snorted, but didn’t make a fuss. After a few moments passed, she started gently stroking his head. Her fingers were feather light on his skin, running through his hair and trickling warmth across his scalp. He sighed in contentment.
“There is always someone to spoil the moment, isn’t there?” Tian murmured.
“Is there? We are in the middle of nowhere.”
“Just goes to show the length nosy people will go to. See? There’s a shaman nearby. He’s snooping with an eagle. You would think he would give us a little privacy.”